What Begins with an Apple
by ebfiddler
Summary: A narrow escape leaves Serenity's crew reeling. A short journey to deliver a couple of crates of live chickens becomes much more complicated than anyone could have imagined. Picks up right where Two by Two by Two left off. Eleventh story in series.
1. Chapter 1

What Begins with an Apple, Part 1a

_What begins with an apple must end with a horse._

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_A/N: (Rather long, I know, but this is the beginning of a rather lengthy fic, so all things in proportion.)_

_Chinese words in text are translated in the glossary at the end of the chapter. In this story, there's also some Latin and Greek, and a little bit of Russian, Japanese, and Gaelic. These, too, are translated in the glossary._

_Rating: My stories are typically K+ to T. You will not find detailed descriptions of blood, gore, and sex, but you will find situations appropriate for mature readers, innuendo, implication, and (gasp) swear words. This story is rated T overall, mostly on account of its sexual innuendo content. No explicit sex scenes._

_Pun Warning: I feel obliged to add a pun warning to this story, as I may in fact have exceeded the legal limit. (This chapter is relatively pun-free. But it will get much, much better (worse?) before the end of the story.) For those averse to punning: Duck and cover! _

_Time frame: I'd like to note that the time frame covered by this entire story is 4 ½ days. Keep this in mind, as it will take much, much longer than five days to post this story._

_I'd like to thank my wonderful beta readers, my sister and Bytemite, for taking the time to read this entire story in raw form, and for their many helpful comments and suggestions. (And in the case of my sister, thanks for reading the story in a _much_ rawer form, asking questions, demanding answers, and provoking a thorough re-write which led—some 30,000 words later—to many improvements.) I want to thank my sister for specific additions to certain scenes of this story (particularly some involving Simon, Ip, and the Operative), and Bytemite for very useful feedback and discussions of other scenes (especially those involving Mal, Inara, and a special guest). I'd also like to thank my friend Julie, who acted as Official Fowl Consultant and Chicken Wrangler for this story. __Also, thanks to my daughter, who read the opening line of this story on my computer and made a comment that turned into one of Jayne's lines in this chapter._

_Phew! Oh, so you want an actual _story_? And here I thought you were reading this just because you love my author's notes so much. ;-)_

_What begins with an apple must end with a horse._

* * *

"What begins with an apple must end with a horse."

River's pronouncement was met with puzzled silence.

Most of the crew was gathered around the dining room table. The Captain was still out cold in his bunk, recovering from what all agreed had been a very stressful day on Beaumonde. They were flying undisturbed through the Black now, headed toward Beaumonde's Trojan planet Hektor to deliver two crates of live chickens before flying on to their final destination of Bernadette. The events of the last twenty-four hours had left everyone aboard distressed, exhausted, injured, or traumatized. Simon had discovered his own face and River's staring out at him from a missing persons bulletin—he was wanted in connection with the "disappearance" of a missing child, his own sister. Kaylee had discovered that someone had attempted to sabotage Serenity, complete with a booby trap set to blow up anyone who tried to fix the damage. River and Ip had had a close call with the Hands of Blue, and avoided kidnapping or assassination only because Ip had recognized one of the Blue Hands as a man who owed him a favor. River had killed the other Blue Hand in his moment of distraction, but he had spoken most of the safeword phrase, putting her into an incoherent state. Simon had been obliged to sedate her. Mal and Zoe were ambushed on the way back from a meet, with Zoe hit squarely in the chest and saved only by her body armor. Inara, too, had had a bad day, as her physically stressed body tried to deal with great emotional distress that was not lessened by her knowledge that much of it could have been avoided, had she chosen differently. Ip, Simon, and Jayne had loaded a massive amount of cargo double time, and only Jayne was not suffering from the physical effects of the unexpected workout. The Captain had, in the last twenty-four hours, negotiated two deals through to closing, obtained a lead on a fence for the illegal cargo he was carrying, fought a gun battle, field-dressed Zoe's injuries, carried her all the way back to the ship, assisted in the infirmary, commanded the crew through a crisis, defused a detonator, loaded cargo, and piloted the ship in a hasty departure with worries of pursuit by the Blue Hands, the Feds, and the unknown attackers. Then he collapsed in a heap in his bunk. No one expected to see him up and about before noon.

"What's that s'posed to mean?" Jayne demanded around the large chunk of apple in his mouth.

"What begins with an apple," River repeated, bobbling her head like a Delphic oracle strung out on oblatory incense, "must end with a _horse._"

Ip and Simon stared at each other. Ip had learned by now that many of River's strange pronouncements contained kernels of truth—for those who could follow the meaning. At the moment he couldn't see it at all, and he could tell that Simon was still thinking it through. The only connection he could see was the bowl of apples in the center of the table. All of the crew—those present anyway—were partaking of the fruit. He absently reached for an apple and felt the muscles in his back spasm, while his arm muscles complained in the aftermath of their unexpected workout. As for horses—all he could think of, in his current state of mind, was: (A) there were no horses in space, and (B) didn't somebody say something like that years ago?

"It's clear enough what it means," Simon began, and Ip and Jayne turned equally confounded faces toward him.

Oddly enough, it was Jayne who lost his stupid expression first. "Ah, gotcha," he said. "Apple falls on the ground, horse comes along an' eats it."

"Jayne, I don't think that's exactly what River—" Simon began.

"Well, you gotta admit, it makes a certain kind of sense," Kaylee inserted. "I mean, practically speakin'."

"'Course it does. Horse eats it, turns it into—"

"Too much detail, Jayne, thank you," Simon interrupted, gritting his teeth.

"Well, at least there ain't no Grizwalds in these apples," Kaylee said with a smile, as she prepared to bite into her apple. "Right, Jayne?"

"No ruttin' idea," Jayne replied, and Kaylee hesitated for one appalled second. "But I don't figure the Cap 'd order 'em with Grizwalds. Grenades cost extra."

"You mean you didn't buy these apples, Jayne?"

"Nope. I figgered we already got leftover fresh fruit from Bandiagara, so I just got more of them choice combustibles—"

"_Comestibles,_" Simon corrected.

"Compostables, whatever," Jayne responded. "The protein packets. Cap musta had the apples sent down to the ship hisself."

River picked up a golden apple from the bowl, and contemplated its skin as if the secrets of the 'Verse were inscribed there. "Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei_," she intoned. "For the fairest."

"That'd be Inara," Kaylee said with an easy laugh. "She's still on the bridge. Funny, ain't it, to think of Inara takin' a trick at the helm. She said the Cap'n himself asked her to fly Serenity."

"Well, Zoe's still in the infirmary," Simon noted, "and River was out cold at the time."

River gave Simon a dirty look. "Put me down like a mad dog. Gorram needles." She did not care for Simon's reliance on heavy sedatives when she had a psychotic episode.

Simon returned his sister's dirty look. "Not like I had much of a choice, River. I'm glad you're feeling a bit better now." _Brat._

"I know what you're thinking, Simon!" _Brat yourself._

Simon grinned, but then his look turned serious. "River, 妹妹 mèimei, I'm just glad you're not in the custody of those Blue Hands 混蛋 húndàn—or worse. The thought of them taking you back to that place…"

Ip visibly shuddered as he remembered those moments in the alley when he expected to be killed. When River suddenly snapped the neck of one of the Blue Hands. And the other turned out to be…Bill. A man he'd thought of as a friend. Bill the hitman. Bill, the secret, corporate assassin. For Blue Sun.

Kaylee noticed Ip's shudder. "Well, it sure was one helluva day, weren't it, Ip? I think we can all agree on that."

Everybody murmured their agreement on that point, and Ip felt his bleakness recede a little. His day had been an escalating series of creepy incidents, piling on one another like he was a character in a badly-written spy novel or a B-grade _film noir_—seeing River's face on the missing children bulletin at the restaurant, fleeing through the hallways of the Geology Building of Dunsmuir University, climbing down the outside wall of the building from a third floor window using a rope made of labcoats, facing the Blue Hands' rod of death, and the sickening snap of the neck—. Ugh. Ip felt the apple bits coming back up, and fought to control the urge to vomit. River reached out and took his hand, and he felt steadied. He looked around. He was safe. Surrounded by…family. Friends. Even Jayne was a steadying presence. Ip took a deep breath.

Jayne pulled out his big, sharp knife. With an intent, menacing look he brandished it in the air, aiming it toward—_thunk_. Jayne pulled in the apple speared on the end of his knife, removed it from the blade, and began cutting it into slices.

"What're you up to, Jayne?" Kaylee asked, as the tension receded and everybody relaxed again.

"Just cuttin' some apple slices to take down to Zoe. She wouldn't touch it if I brought her a whole one."

. . .

"Tired."

"Yes, I am," Inara answered, without any attempt to be anything but perfectly direct. She'd been up all night, and her defenses were completely down. Mal could have asked her anything at that moment, and she would have been incapable of telling him anything except the unvarnished truth.

"You need sleep." River slid into the pilot's seat. "藕断丝连 Ǒuduànsīlián." Inara looked sharply at her. The expression on River's face could have meant anything, or nothing. "Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei_," she said, offering Inara an apple.

Inara took it with a murmur of thanks. "Are you feeling better?" she asked with a yawn, as it occurred to her that River must have recently awoken from the sedated sleep Simon had put her in after the attack on Beaumonde.

"Better," River answered. "Not _good._"

Inara nodded. "Can you fly?" she yawned.

"Yes. Sleep now." River began the standard checks of the ship's log and systems.

Inara left her flipping switches, and made her way wearily to her shuttle.

. . .

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glossary

Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei _[To the fairest (Greek)]

妹妹 mèimei [younger sister]

混蛋 húndàn[bastards]

藕断丝连 Ǒuduànsīlián [lit. "Lotus roots may break, but the fiber remains joined" (idiom meaning "Lovers part, but still long for one another")]

Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei _[To the fairest (Greek)]

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_Next chapter coming soon. Your comments are most welcome._


	2. Chapter 2

What Begins with an Apple, Part 1b

_No one's quite the same in the aftermath of the events on Beaumonde._

* * *

Inara was exhausted, but her thoughts were in such turmoil that it was impossible to sleep. And the focus of her thoughts was Mal. He'd carried injured Zoe on his back, saving her from the unknown shooters who'd ambushed them. Inara had seen his exhaustion, though he pulled himself up and made himself go on, and on, and on, until the day was done and they were safely back in the Black. Looking at him as he'd arrived in the infirmary and placed Zoe on the table, Inara had felt guilty. Guilty to see that he'd pushed himself so long and so hard, for the sake and safety of his crew, while she had indulged in some self-destructive anger and taken a conjugal client in a fit of pique. He'd shown loyalty and courage, had taken care of everybody but himself, and gave and gave and gave, while she…used a client to take revenge. And hadn't even enjoyed the experience.

She knew what she'd seen, and what she'd heard, on the voyage to Beaumonde: Mal and Zoe speaking intimately, touching, kissing. It was impossible to discount that. Corroborating that evidence was Mal's focus on Zoe in the infirmary, before Simon checked her injuries. He'd barely spoken to Inara, but he'd locked eyes with Zoe for one of those long, intimate no-talking talks that made Inara insanely jealous.

Why couldn't _she_ have that with Mal? Why was communication between them so difficult? And why was it so easy between Mal and Zoe? Those two understood each other perfectly, almost without saying a word. Back in the infirmary, Mal had held Zoe's hand, and clearly his emotions were completely engaged with her. Mal and Zoe had even spoken in unison. 该死 Gāisǐ! All the 九幽 jiǔ yōu were not enough—nor the 三塗, 即血塗, 刀塗, 火塗 sān tú, jí xuè tú, dāo tú, huǒ tú. 心の 鬼が 身を 責める。Kokoro no oni ga mi o semeru.

But what to make of his rant in the infirmary? That was where her questions started. Could she believe him? He'd stated unequivocally that Zoe's unborn child was Wash's baby. She'd been angry, still so angry with Mal, but she couldn't imagine he'd be able to obfuscate under such circumstances. He'd been blurting out his feelings, undisguised. And those feelings were that any person who harmed _Wash's child_ would have him to reckon with. If her assumption that Mal was really the father of Zoe's child was wrong, had she also been wrong about his infidelity with Zoe?

He hadn't been hiding anything. He'd bared every thought and feeling in that time of crisis. And his feelings were clearly that any 混蛋 húndàn who shot a pregnant woman for any reason was a 混蛋 húndàn who deserved ending. It wasn't personal. It was the rant of a decent human being.

Inara was in no state to admit it, even to herself, but she and Mal were in complete sympathy with one another on this point. Inara felt exactly the same way. Deep within her, reinforced by her Companion's training and the philosophical principles of the Guild, was the concept of the mother goddess, the source of life and comfort. Protecting a woman's capacity to bring forth new life was at the core of it. It was part of what made sex both beautiful and natural. Any person who violated that covenant was unfit to be called human. Inara felt that the killing of a pregnant woman went beyond mere criminality, and even beyond being an offense to all humanity. It was offense against Nature itself. There was a term for species of animals that did not protect and cherish mothers and their young. The term was _extinct._

. . .

"River?" Ip asked tentatively, as he stood at the threshold of the bridge, unwilling to enter without invitation.

"Ip," she returned mildly, and indicated that he should enter.

"Are you alright?" he asked, reaching for her hand. Ostensibly, the gesture was to comfort her, but the truth was that he was more in need of comfort himself. She took his hand.

"No," she answered straightforwardly, looking him in the eye. "Are you?"

Her answer to his question allowed him to admit it. "No. I'm not alright. I'm…River, that was the…craziest…" he couldn't finish his sentence.

River looked into his eyes, and held his hands. "It's not easy to accept that someone has tried to kill you."

"I just don't understand." Ip was traumatized by the events on Beaumonde, disturbed. He didn't know how to make sense of what had transpired. The whole thing just seemed…almost unreal. And yet River seemed to see it coming, and had taken steps to avoid, escape, and finally to confront the danger. It just didn't make any sense. "River, what was going on there, at the university, in that alley?"

"Can't talk about it, Ip," she answered, breaking contact with him, and looking out into the Black.

It was easier for him to take on the role of comforter than to confront his own fears about the events on Beaumonde. So he said soothingly, "Yes, you can. I won't tell anyone else. I'll keep your confidences."

"I didn't say I won't talk about it. Said I _can't._"

Ip pondered the semantics. "So there's a difference."

"Of course there's a difference," River snapped. "Different meanings, different context."

Ip held up his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Okay. No offense meant. I…just want to help."

River gave him a penetrating stare. "You _want_ help."

Ip sucked in a breath. Yes. He wanted help. He _needed_ help. "Yes. Actually, yes. I just can't make any sense of it. Why would…_anyone…_come after us in an alley? Not random violence. It was like it was…an assassination," he whispered the word, wondering if he was crazy to suggest it. Who would assassinate a free-lance terraformologist, lately employed by Blue Sun Research Branch? It made no sense.

"It was," River said, matter-of-factly.

"It _was_?" Ip's voice jumped an octave or two.

"It was," River stated definitively.

"But…"

"Planned operation. Capture me. 'Neutralize' you."

Ip shuddered. That was the word the Blue Hand man, Bill's partner—Bill's _dead_ partner—had used. "But I'm nobody."

River rolled her eyes.

"Nobody important," Ip continued, wondering how—it was _his_ life, it had really happened to _him—_but how had his life come to resemble some pulpy spy novel? Secret agents, assassinations in a dark alley—what was next? Torture by insane crime bosses? Comic book villains bent on revenge? Ritual suicide? What was he _doing_ on this ship? "Why would anyone feel the need to assassinate _me?_ I'm nobody."

"Witness. They don't want a witness." Definitely, they didn't want a witness. Ip had seen them hunting her, and now he was a target, too. River wanted to tell him _why._ It wasn't only a matter of what he knew. It was also a matter of what they might think he knew. It was because of _her. _She wanted to tell him all, and yet at the same time she didn't, because—even after all that had passed—he still saw her as a person, actual and whole. Still saw the girl, not the weapon. She wanted to tell him about Miranda, because that would explain a lot, but she couldn't. The Captain was still of the opinion that the story of what had happened at Miranda, the battle with the Reavers, and the struggle to send the broadwave was to be divulged only on a need-to-know basis, and he still held to the opinion that Ip did not need to know. River did not agree with the Captain, but she chose not to argue the point. It would soon be moot. The decision would be taken out of the Captain's hands. Still, her hands were tied at present. She couldn't tell Ip now. "And you're not _nobody_," she added with warmth in her voice, her eloquent eyes on him.

Ip couldn't believe that River was bringing up fond feelings at a time like this. "River, this really isn't the time for friendly…"

"Not saying that just because I like you, Ip," River interrupted, tossing the word _like_ casually into Ip's pond, as if unaware of the ripples it caused in his feelings. "You are an important piece of this puzzle. You are on this ship for a reason."

"On this ship for a reason?" Ip echoed. "River, the reason I'm on this ship is that I happened to be stranded on 尘球 Chén Qiú when Serenity showed up, and I needed a job."

"Could have taken another job. Could have taken another ship. Chose this one. No accident."

Ip pondered. That was exactly what Brother Chan 'eil Càil an so a' Faicadh had told him, too.

"You need to think about _why_ you chose Serenity," River exhorted him earnestly.

"I'm beginning to wonder," Ip spoke, almost to himself. "Must have been crazy, to put myself…"

"They were after _me_," River said suddenly. "You stood in their way." After a pause, she added, "Thanks."

Ip gulped. He had almost been killed because he stood in the way of the Blue Hands getting to River Tam? "Why—?" he began. "_Why_ are they after you?"

"Secrets."

Again, he was frustrated. What were these secrets, and why wouldn't _anyone_ tell him _anything?_

"Secrets in my brain," River clarified.

"They're after _you_," he realized, making connections, "because of…secrets in your _brain?"_

River nodded.

"What—? Who—? Why—?" Ip began several times, but it was impossible even to formulate the question. It was all so unreal. He paused for a moment, his thoughts in turmoil. Some scraps of earlier conversations with River and Simon floated to the surface of the roiling pool. _"They told our parents it was a school." "Taught me how to kill Reavers." "They were taking unsuspecting teenagers away from their families and conditioning them with triggers to fight Reavers." "They opened up her skull and cut into her brain." "My education was interrupted." "I wanted to leave the Core. Simon gave up his position and everything he had to help me." "I broke River out of that so-called school when I found out they were torturing her there." "We were fugitives. The Captain took us in and kept us safe." "Can't see the weapon. Only see the girl." "We're too tempting a target—it's far too dangerous." "Can't leave Serenity. Don't want to leave Serenity." "Never feels safe." "Blue Sun secret operatives." "They've chased us." "Two by two, Hands of Blue, two by two…"_

"Can't _talk_ about it, Ip," River repeated. _But you can _think_ about it._

. . .

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glossary

该死 Gāisǐ [Damn it]

九幽 jiǔ yōu [nine serenities (a term for the nine hells in Chinese Buddhism)]

三塗, 即血塗, 刀塗, 火塗 sān tú, jí xuè tú, dāo tú, huǒ tú [the three tortures (of Chinese Buddhism), namely, the spilling of blood, chopping by knife, and burning by fire]

心の 鬼が 身を 責める。Kokoro no oni ga mi o semeru [The body is tortured only by the demon of the heart (Japanese Buddhist proverb)]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

尘球 Chén Qiú [name of a world]

Chan 'eil Càil an so a' Faicadh [There is nothing left to see (Scottish Gaelic)]

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_A/N: Reviews are shiny._


	3. Chapter 3

What Begins with an Apple, Part 2a

_Mal wakes up and rockets around._

* * *

Mal woke up late, groggy and disoriented, and still wearing yesterday's clothes, including his boots. As he sat up and cleared the fog from his brain, the events of the previous day came sliding back into focus. 天啊 Tiān ā. It was late morning, he hadn't been called up in the night, he was still alive, and Serenity was clearly flying placidly through the Black. He concluded that the pursuit he had feared hadn't materialized, so he took a few minutes to peel off the dusty, sweaty clothes, wash, and shave. "Peel off" was a literal term, as he found to his surprise that some blood had congealed and dried around a bullet graze on his left forearm, sticking the fabric to his skin. 哎呀 Āiyā. Hadn't even noticed it in all of yesterday's commotion. _There's another gorram shirt needs mending_, he thought, as he chucked the shirt into his laundry hamper. _And one for the rag bag, _he added as he pulled his ruined t-shirt off over his head. He'd torn the bottom half of it off for Zoe's bandage. He cleaned the wound. It was only a light graze, and weren't no point puttin' a weave on it now. He washed and shaved with a dispatch learned in years of campaigning, then put on clean—well, clean_er—_clothes. Time to get cracking. He made his way up to the bridge for a status report.

The bridge. 哎呀 Āiyā. He had left Inara on the bridge, stuck her with night watch, left her there for—oh 哎呀 āiyā, musta been twelve hours by now. With Zoe laid up in the infirmary, and River knocked out by Simon's medication, and him taking his sweet time getting his beauty rest…_哎呀__āiyā__._ He needed to apologize to Inara and relieve the helm. He hastened his step, took the stairs two at a time. He had no right to ask such favors of her, to demand that she cover for his lapses, 哦 天啊 ò tiān ā…

"Albatross."

River turned away from the controls, looked at him, and smiled.

"Didn't reckon to see you—" he paused, reconsidered, and finished, "up and about." He certainly hadn't expected to see her on bridge duty, and if he'd figured she was up and about at all, he'd have thought she'd be just as incoherent as she'd been on Beaumonde, when Simon had found it necessary to sedate her.

"Thought I'd be having crazy time."

He opted for direct. "And are you? Having crazy time, that is."

"Not so much," she replied.

He smiled. "Not so much. I'm glad to hear it. You sure about that?" he added, glancing toward the controls.

River understood. "I'm perfectly capable of flying this ship, Captain." River answered his unspoken question as well. "I relieved the watch this morning. You both needed to suspend consciousness and voluntary bodily functions." River watched him work through the meaning of her words, and added, "She went to her shuttle to sleep."

He nodded, taking in her report, then addressed the next item of ship's business. "Not that I'm complaining about it, Albatross, but ain't this a big turn around? Yesterday, you were quaking like a jelly. Today, you're…"

"Lucid."

"Lucid. Yeah."

"No more Hands of Blue."

"You mean we shook them off?" he asked, hopefully.

"Left them in the dust of Beaumonde."

"Did you check—?" he began.

"No fresh warrants," River answered, anticipating his question, "for any of us."

"I never did get the full story there about the Hands of Blue, River. Wanna fill me in?"

She shook her head.

His question had been purely rhetorical. 'No' was not an option. "How's about you start at the beginning."

"_In pricipio erat Verbum,"_ River quoted.

"In the beginning was the Word," Mal translated, recognizing the biblical quotation perfectly well. _One word may be okay for a start, but how's about some_ more _words, Albatross?_

"_In principio erat ovum. Ovi. Ovo. Ovum. Ovo. Ovum. Ova. Ovorum…"_

"Albatross…" he warned. He hadn't come here to listen to strings of syllables. "You gonna get started here?" He waited for an answer, but River declined. "Albatross…just start from the beginning."

"_Ad ovo,_" she said, in a ghosty voice.

Mal didn't recognize the words, but he understood the tone of voice and body language clear enough. He'd had experience extracting battle reports from traumatized troops. "How many?" he pressed. "Just them two Blue Hands?"

"Two by two…by two."

"You mean, what? Four? Two pairs of Blue Hands?"

River nodded.

"Tell me what happened."

"Two in the halls of the building. Evaded them. They weren't looking for Ip. His lack of awareness was an asset. Saved him. Looked like he belonged in the university. They didn't question his presence."

Mal acknowledged the truth of that with a nod. Of course Ip looked like he belonged in a university. "And you?"

"Hid."

"You hid. And they passed Ip by, because he looked the sort of fella what belonged in that hallway."

She nodded again.

"Right. But that wasn't the end of it, was it?"

"Went to the break room. Made a rope ladder of labcoats. Sent Ip down the wall." She contemplated making a pun about _climbing the walls_, but it hit too close to home to be amusing. She opted to continue her narrative. "Go somewhere safe. _Can't kidnap you or take you down easy, in front of witnesses._" River's voice had taken on his accent, and Mal recognized his own advice being quoted back at him. She gave a little shake of the head. "Couldn't get there in time."

"They ran you to ground somewheres."

"The alley behind the geology building. Only one way out. Dark, uninhabited. All in shadow. Two by two, Hands of Blue…two by two…by two…"

"Keep your focus, River. I need you to finish this gorram battle report."

"Were talking to each other. _ Neutralize him. Speak the safeword."_

Mal locked eyes with her, and gave a low whistle. "They tried to kill Ip and put you down with that safeword Simon used on you at the Maidenhead."

She nodded. "Favored weapon. Horizontal rod in a blue-gloved hand. Two spicules extend from either end. Mechanism of operation unknown. Breaks down cutaneous and mucosal membranes. Causes hemorrhage from every orifice." Mal remained silent, but kept his eyes locked on her, so she elaborated. "Bleeding from eyes and ears and mouth and nose. And fingernails, too."

"So how come it didn't work?"

She stared at him.

"Ip's still alive, and you're still with us. What happened?"

"Blue Hand got distracted. Craniocervical dislocation fracture."

Mal's knowledge of anatomy was not quite so detailed as River's, but he understood her to mean she broke the guy's neck. He didn't doubt her lethality. He'd seen the results. The image of River standing alone—the sole survivor—in a room full of dead Reavers would be forever seared in his brain. He nodded. "But you didn't take out the second one."

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

"Safe word. Half-spoken. Confused my brain. Contradictory signals. Caught in the neuronal cross-fire." She gave a low, maniacal laugh, starting softly and beginning a hysterical rise.

Mal cut her off. He didn't know quite what she meant by her little speech, but he asked, "Then it was Ip? He took down the other one?" Mal couldn't quite picture the young scientist having it in him to do that.

"He knew him."

Mal almost dropped his jaw on the floor. "He _knew_ him?" _Knew him. What the __最的地狱 __zuì de dìyù__?!_

"Bill."

"Bill," Mal repeated blankly. _Ip Neumann was on a first-name basis with one of the Hands of Blue?_ It was more than he could process.

. . .

Mal wanted to kill him. But not before he got the story out of him. _So how is it, Ip, that you're on a first-name basis with one of them gorram Hands of Blue operatives? How did you neglect to mention that? Came back to the ship with River, and just said, "We weren't followed."_ Mal wanted to lay into him, beat him to a pulp. But not before he told him everything he knew about his gorram 'friend' Bill. 'Friend' Bill the gorram ruttin' Blue Hand assassin. _ How did you convince him to let you go? How did you convince him to let _River_ go? How did you convince your 'friend' Bill not to follow you and River back to Serenity? _He recalled Ip's words: _"He said he could give me two hours. Maybe three." _He was gonna throttle Ip. But not before he found out just how he knew 'friend' Bill would keep his word and give him two hours' head start. _Or did you make a deal with him that I don't know about? _He drove his fist into the bulkhead. _你他媽的 __天下 __所有的 __人 都 __該死 __Nǐ tāmādē tiānxià suǒyǒu __de __rén dōu gāisǐ__!_

. . .

He stormed off the bridge, breathing fire, ready to give Ip hell the moment he saw him. Mal rocketed around his ship, looking for someone to hit, or at least blow up at. Where the 地狱 dìyù was Ip? Never had Serenity's halls seemed so deserted. Where the 地狱 dìyù was everyone? It was like they'd all retreated to their corners to lick their wounds.

After barrelling through the upper corridors, Mal barged down the stairs, to find Jayne in the cargo bay, his personal arsenal assembled and laid out before him on a cloth-covered crate. He was cleaning his weapons. Needed to hear what Jayne had to say about the events what transpired on Beaumonde, too, and might as well hear it now. He took a deep breath, and tried to tamp down the fire that burned within.

"Nothin' untoward, Cap'n," Jayne replied in response to Mal's question, as he carefully handled Lux, his favorite assault rifle. Jayne noted that the Captain looked like to explode. Hadn't seen the man look so dangerous since Ariel, when he'd come within seconds of spacing him. Jayne was careful to keep his response measured. "Didn't know nothin' bad was goin' down 'til Kaylee waved me."

"Interrupted your play, I reckon," Mal remarked, in an unnecessarily judgmental way.

"Hell, Mal, no need to get tetchy," Jayne answered evenly, keeping the _just because you need some and didn't get it_ to himself. "Sure, I didn't get my money's worth. But that don't matter. I'd rather be here, alive."

"Coulda slipped. Ship out with someone else."

_Now where'd Mal go come up with a thing like that? _Jayne thought. Sure, a year or two ago, that mighta been exactly what he woulda done. When he'd joined Serenity, he always figured if things got bad, he'd slip out and join another ship. But things had changed. "Coulda," he acknowledged. "Sure would be a helluva lot less dangerous." Same points he'd made, in case Mal didn't recollect, when the Cap had brought Moonbrain and her brother back aboard after she went ape-shit in the Maidenhead Bar. "But," Jayne went on, _things have changed. _"This boat's my home."

Mal was almost touched. Jayne showing such fond feelings for Serenity and her crew?

Then Jayne continued, "And I woulda lost Vera. And Lux. And Binky, too. And—"

"You came back 'cause you didn't want to lose your _guns?!"_

"Binky's a _knife_, Mal, not a gun. My _favorite_ knife. Point is, Mal, I came back soon as I knew somethin' was up. And I'm glad I did. Those docs needed my help."

Mal was curious about this, and raised his eyebrows in query.

Jayne hesitated a moment. It was tempting to tell what 猴子的 屁股 hóuzi de pìgu them docs was, and make himself look good at their expense. Mal didn't have no better opinion of the docs' skills in the cargo-hauling department than what Jayne did, and he would certainly believe him. But Jayne was seized by the urge to pull together, to protect his crew, as it were. And, now that Mal had stepped down a notch or two from high-alert-damned-dangerous, he didn't see the point in ramping the man up to cold-and-deadly-explosive again. "Made the work go much faster, havin' three men on the job," he said. "Way I figure, sooner we were off that gorram rock, the better. Whaddya figure, Mal, about the Blue Hands _and_ the ambush? Someone on Beaumonde _really_ don't like you, Mal."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

天啊 Tiān ā [God]

哎呀 Āiyā [Damn]

哦 天啊 ò tiān ā [oh god]

_In pricipio erat Verbum [In the beginning was the Word (Latin)]_

_In principio erat ovum. Ovi. Ovo. Ovum. Ovo. Ovum. Ova. Ovorum… [In the beginning was the egg. Of the egg (genitive case). To the egg (dative case). Egg (accusative case). From the egg (ablative case). Oh, egg! (vocative case). Eggs (nominative plural). Of the eggs (genitive plural)…(second declension, Latin)]_

_Ad ovo [From the beginning, lit. "from the egg" (Latin)]_

_最的地狱 __zuì de dìyù [bloody hell]_

_你他媽的 天下 所有的 人都 該死 __Nǐ tāmādē tiānxià suǒyǒu de rén dōu gāisǐ [F-k everyone in the universe to death]_

地狱 dìyù [hell]

猴子的 屁股 hóuzi de pìgu [monkeys' asses]

* * *

_A/N: What's Mal going to do? Your comments (and surmises) are appreciated. Any students of Latin catch that horrible groaner of a pun? (Yes, I am a geek, and proudly self-identify as such, thank you very much. :-) )_


	4. Chapter 4

What Begins with an Apple, Part 2b

_Ups and downs. Mal gets caught up and gets the download about the events on Beaumonde._

* * *

Someone on Beaumonde really _didn't _like him, of that he had no doubt. And no matter what Buck Holden had suggested, Mal had no doubt at all that the ambush and the sabotage were tied in with his work running secrets for Holden Boys. It was no coincidence. The question was, who was tipping them off? And _who_, exactly, were_'they'?_ How did they know he was on Beaumonde, and how did they know about his visit to Holden Brothers? Holden still suspected he had a mole in his shop. Mal and Zoe had sat for hours cooling their heels in Buck Holden's waiting room. It was plenty of time for Holden's mole to alert _them _(whoever they were). Plenty of time to set up an ambush. The sabotage, on the other hand, had happened back at the fruit market, not at Pedro Docks. Who was the rotten apple back at the South Sirindhorn Farmers' Market? Pugh, the fruit broker? Pugh's corrupt Ag Inspector? Marcela Devine or someone in her network of shady business contacts? Mal didn't have answers to any of those questions.

When he strode into the passenger lounge looking for Ip Neumann, he found Simon in the infirmary, reviewing the readouts from Zoe's monitors. Zoe was sleeping, so he called Simon out into the lounge, to hear _his_ tale of woe as far as what happened on Beaumonde.

"It's not a warrant," Simon told him, "but it might as well be. I'm listed as the last person seen with River Tam, a missing child."

"That ain't exactly a surprise," Mal remarked, "and it don't make them look overly bright. Seems it took 'em two years to figure out River was missing." The two men stared at each other for a moment. "But that ain't the point. The point is, they waited until now to put that bulletin up."

"If I set foot off the ship, I'll likely be apprehended for kidnapping," Simon worried.

Mal dismissed this. "I'm thinkin' it's a good sign."

_Good? How do you figure that?_ Simon's expression must have telegraphed his thoughts, for Mal responded as if he'd heard them.

"How do I figure that, you wonder?" Mal shifted his weight and scratched the side of his face. "Means they've despaired of catching you the conventional way. They already tried that fugitive tack, and it didn't work."

"Doesn't feel like a good sign," Simon replied, his voice expressing his doubts clearly.

"You told me you made your way back to the ship unmolested."

"That's right."

"You figure anyone recognized you?" Mal asked. "Just where did you see this bulletin—at the medical supplier?"

Simon shook his head.

_At the jewelry shop, then,_ Mal figured. "Hey, how'd your other mission go?" he asked with a little smile.

"The marriage license?" Simon was surprised—and yeah, a little bit touched—that the Captain was sympathetic enough to inquire.

"I meant buyin' a ring," Mal returned. "You mean you also went and got a marriage license?" He was, in fact, quite interested. Never thought he'd be lookin' to the Doc for pointers on how a homeless outlaw might acquire a marriage license. "How'd you do that? They don't issue 'em at the jewelry shop, that's for damn sure."

"I went to the courthouse, after I bought the ring."

There was a moment of appalled silence. _Courthouse?! _"You walked into a gorram courthouse in broad daylight, with your name and face displayed on that bulletin?!" Mal exclaimed incredulously. Always knew the Doc had guts, but this was altogether beyond the pale—this was reckless—foolish—白痴的 báichīde—放纵 疯狂 的 结 fàngzòng fēngkuáng de jié. Not that Mal was exactly qualified to judge of what was reckless and foolish, or nothin', but this was tempting fate.

"That's where I first saw it," Simon explained coolly, unflinching under the Captain's penetrating stare. "I certainly wouldn't have entered the building, had I known." He paused, his statement finished, but the Captain's continued stare compelled him to add, "I think the clerk recognized me."

"Do tell," Mal said coldly.

"I applied for the license, filled in the paperwork. It was while I was waiting for them to issue the license that the bulletin showed up, on a cortex screen right above my head."

"So you reckon the clerk got a good look?"

"Yes," Simon acknowledged.

"He or she take any action?"

"Not so far as I could tell," Simon replied. "I was careful not to react."

Mal nodded. He didn't have much confidence in Simon's acting skills, but he did believe the boy could keep his cool in a crisis.

"But then the licensing registrar called my name to pick up the license. I left directly after that, but I think hearing my name coupled with the image in such close juxtaposition—the clerk had to have made the connection."

Mal took it all in with an unreadable expression. Simon wasn't expecting his next question. "How long do you reckon it was, between the time you were recognized at the courthouse, and the time River and Ip come back to the ship after the Blue Hands nearly got 'em?"

. . .

Mal spent some time sitting with Zoe in the infirmary. She was still sleeping off her concussion, recovering from the chest shot that was stopped by her body armor, but left her bruised. The unborn baby was unhurt, thank goodness. Mal found himself staring at Zoe's bulging belly, watching the little one inside kick and squirm, all active now that Zoe was resting. He needed some time to think.

Zoe slept on, so they didn't have any conversation. He coulda used her counsel. Not that they needed to _talk_, exactly. He just needed to…organize his thoughts…bounce what he'd learned off of her, get her take on it. Didn't particularly need words. Her reaction would be enough. Zoe kept him grounded.

So he just sat a spell, taking in some of that cool and collected serenity that Zoe inevitably carried with her, and thought about the other crew members.

Didn't particularly need to talk to Kaylee, at this particular juncture. The salient points had been made back at Pedro Docks.

_He descended the side of Serenity, with the disassembled parts of the Qianxia proximity detonator in his hands, to find Kaylee waiting at the foot of the ladder. "All clear," he said, and watched Kaylee's features transform, as she took in the significance of the words and the parts in his hands._

"_Cap'n, you did it!" She threw herself into his arms. Damn, but he needed a good Kaylee hug, even if the respite from worries was only temporary._

"_Hey, li'l Kaylee. No lazin' around. Blue Hands could be comin' any minute. Grab your tools and get up there. I'll bring up the navsat."_

_As they worked to install it, Mal asked a few pertinent questions, and otherwise kept focused on the task. Mrs Li's son and his security team had kept watch, Kaylee told him; no strangers had approached Serenity. Inara had returned mid-morning, and shortly after, Kaylee went topside to install the navsat, and that's when she discovered the sabotage job and detonator booby trap. _

_Mal felt a jolt of retrospective anxiety—she could have been killed, and she was also—. Pregnant. Kaylee was pregnant. She could have been killed. Her and the baby. He tried to keep the unavowed knowledge out of his eyes, but couldn't prevent himself from reaching out a protective arm toward her. He touched her shoulder, gently._

"_What's this about, __哥哥 __gēge?" She turned toward him with a warm smile._

"_You coulda been killed, Kaylee," he said. "You—"_

"_But I weren't," she replied, smiling still. "I recognized that detonator, from before."_

_And that made him sick, too. _'Before,'_ she said. The last time this happened, they'd been in deep space when they discovered the booby trap. Kaylee and Mal were outside the boat in spacesuits, and Mal's instincts had kicked in just in time to prevent Kaylee getting blown up._

"_You taught me well, Cap'n. _ _谢谢__Xièxie__." She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I love my Captain."_

_He thoroughly didn't deserve to be kissed, to be loved, not when he'd failed so miserably in his duties. He hadn't managed to protect her this time, not at all. But, damn, it still felt good to be touched by the warmth of Kaylee's sunshine. He turned his attention back to the navsat installation. "Best get this done, Kaylee. We're losing time."_

_And other than _that_, Kaylee told him, the day had been uneventful—until the others started turning up with their tales of ambush, kidnapping, and murder._

. . .

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.

.

glossary

白痴的 báichīde [idiotic]

放纵 疯狂 的 结 fàngzòng fēngkuáng de jié [a knot of self-indulgent lunacy]

_哥哥__gēge__ [older brother]_

_谢谢 __Xièxie [Thanks]_

* * *

_I always appreciate your feedback. Please leave a comment or review._


	5. Chapter 5

What Begins with an Apple, Part 3a

_War Stories and the Special Hell_

* * *

Zoe stirred in her sleep, and for a minute Mal hoped she would open her eyes so he could have his palaver with her. But she shifted positions and settled back down into a deeper sleep, and he didn't interfere.

He sat there, remembering all the times he'd lain in this infirmary, waking up to find one of his crew by his side—Simon or Book, Zoe or Inara…

He wanted to talk to Inara, but couldn't. Kaylee told him that Inara had returned to the ship mid-morning, from those gorram _appointments_ that he was supposed to believe didn't have nothin' to do with clients. She still wasn't up and about—after taking night watch on the bridge, she'd earned her rest. Before Inara's quarrel with him, Mal would have checked in at the shuttle to make sure all was well with her. Maybe even lie down beside her and hold her as she slept. But he didn't figure his presence would be welcome now, whether she were wakeful or sleeping. Didn't want no more crockery pitched at his head. Still, he hoped that if anything traumatic had happened to her on Beaumonde, he woulda heard of it by now.

Didn't help that they weren't speaking to one another right now. He'd had it right up to here with that. He didn't intend to put up with no more silent treatment from Inara. He'd made up his mind. He'd talk with her as need be, and if she didn't answer it was _her_ that was acting uncivilized. Ship's business—and that included the welfare of the crew—it was his business to know. In fact, it was his _duty_. So he'd find a time to talk with her soon. But he wasn't going to disturb her rest. They'd have plenty of time to talk on it later. It was five days afore they'd reach Hektor.

He rubbed his eyes—just thinking about it all gave him a headache. It really had been one helluva day on Beaumonde, by any standards, and one night's sleep wasn't really enough time to recover. Needed some time to think on all of the ponderables raised by the strange happenings each and every member of his crew had experienced on Beaumonde. He propped his head on his elbows and watched the steady rise and fall of Zoe's chest as she slumbered.

. . .

Mal was unsurprised to see the Shepherd standing before him in the infirmary. "Book."

Book nodded his silent greeting.

"The usual beginning," Mal remarked, restraining his urge to roll his eyes at the Shepherd's predictable behavior.

Book raised his eyebrows. "The 'usual,' Captain?"

"Yeah, you always start out by popping up and givin' me the silent treatment, 'til I start to spill."

"Is that a problem, Captain?"

"No. Reckon it ain't. Just means you find out a lot more about me than I ever find out about you."

Book was silent.

_Of course_, Mal snorted. He stayed silent for a spell. He could outlast the Shepherd in a silent contest. He could. He could…he couldn't take it. "See?" he exclaimed. "That there's just what I'm talkin' about. You're doin' that Jedi mind trick thing on me again." Book still didn't speak, so Mal felt compelled to continue. "Leaving space, like you're expectin' me to fill it with words." There was more silence from Book. "You figure, you don't ask, you just wait for me to drop something into the space, something I don't want to tell."

"And _do_ you?"

Mal crossed his arms, stubbornly. "Do I _what?"_

"Want to tell?"

"Harrumph."

All was silent for a spell. Finally, Mal opened his mouth, but to his astonishment the preacher stepped into the gap.

"You seem to be headed for the Special Hell."

"What the _hell?!"_ Mal exclaimed._ That one sure come out of left field_.

Book just nodded.

"Headed for the Special Hell?" Mal sputtered indignantly. "What kind of talk is that?" Book continued to hold his trademark preacher expression, that enigmatic slight smile. "Shepherd, I already been to the Special Hell. Hell, I _live_ there."

Book nodded. This time sadly.

Mal folded his arms across his chest, rocked back on his heels, and returned the Shepherd's look with a stare of his own. "So what do you think I should oughtta do about that?" he demanded.

"About what?"

"Bein' in the Special Hell. Unless you think I should take up permanent residency."

"You get a certain satisfaction out of being there," Book replied.

_Like hell! _Mal thought.

Book just nodded, and held his gaze.

. . .

Zoe awoke to find Mal sleeping in the chair by the side of the infirmary bed, out like a light. He hadn't been shot (she thought), but she knew he'd had one helluva day, too. He must have taken night watch—both she and River had been out of commission—on top of all the commotion on Beaumonde, and she wasn't surprised that he needed more sleep.

She remembered the ambush, the blow to the chest. She had fallen, and the world went black. She'd come back to consciousness to find herself draped over Mal's shoulder, as he jogged through the streets. She knew how far they had been from Serenity when they were attacked, and he must have carried her the whole way. Weren't easy to do. She was not a light woman.

She'd passed out again as they jolted along, and had come to once more to find herself in the infirmary, with Mal and Inara, and then Simon, fussing over her. She felt sick, and the pain throbbed in her head and her knee. The feeling like she'd been hit in the chest with a brick didn't help none. She'd noticed the moment Mal ceased ranting and reverted to war-time mode. From that moment forth, he'd issued a series of terse battlefield commands. Dispatched Kaylee for tools. Sent the two docs to load the cargo. Designated Inara for infirmary duty. And, as usual, assigned the most risky job to himself.

Defusing a gorram Qianxia proximity detonator. Zoe snorted. _Of course_.

Back in the war, the Captain—Mal—or Sarge, as she called him in those days—had been sent to the UXO training course as a reward, a sort of rest vacation. Independent Command couldn't manage the logistics of giving him home leave, so they'd arranged the next best thing: being pulled off the line for the four-week course. Nobody actually expected him to _use_ the skills he learned there to deal with real unexploded ordnance, but, Mal being Mal, of course he did. And saved all their 屁股 pìgu. Again.

They'd been dropped as a detached unit for a hit-and-run raid. It happened often enough. Detached work required leadership and their sarge had that in spades. Hit-and-runs called for a special talent. Now, the truth was, Sergeant Reynolds wasn't actually so 聪明 cōngming at _making_ plans. They even had a term for it in the unit: the soldiers would ask if the plan had been "Alleyned, " meaning, had Sarge run it by Corporal Zoe Alleyne ahead of time. Any undertaking as hadn't been "Alleyned" didn't have even a prayer of going according to plan. No, Sarge's true talent was improvisation. When plans failed, and everything went to hell in a handbasket, that's when you wanted to be with Sergeant Reynolds. Because with him, you'd come through it alive. It was when everything went pear-shaped that the man's true talents showed.

They'd reached their objective, destroyed the machine gun nest and planted explosives on the bridge. It was a measure of their success that the ruckus they'd raised was now attracting a helluva lot of attention down by the river, at the other end of the shattered temple complex.

Their line of retreat took them through the wreckage of the desecrated temple. They couldn't go back the way they'd come. They heard a tremendous boom down the way, shaking the ground and raining shattered masonry about their heads, and Zoe knew one of the Alliance rollers had triggered the explosives on the bridge. According to intel, the temple grounds had a back gate, and that was supposed to be their escape route. Zoe couldn't see it, and they looked to be coming up to a solid rock wall, a sheer cliff that effectively trapped them in the temple grounds, unless they found that back gate. She didn't doubt the "back gate"—if indeed it was there—had other defenses.

Zoe's stealth skills marked her for scout in situations like this. While Kiri and Tedesco provided rear guard, the rest took cover. Zoe and the Sarge scouted ahead to find their exit.

They worked together seamlessly, with the silent communication that they had perfected over time—no more than hand signals and a few looks. They crept up on the gate, having encountered no human guards. Which Zoe knew meant it was almost certainly protected by an electronic barrier or booby trap. They exchanged a look.

Zoe acknowledged the silent order and slid forward on her belly to explore the limits of the presumed electronic perimeter barrier. Sarge pulled out a scope and focused on the gate itself.

Her recon complete, she returned to Sarge's location to hear him swearing under his breath. Or what passed for swearing with him. Zoe woulda smiled at his quaint expressions, but in a situation like this, she knew one "dawg gone it" from Sergeant Reynolds was the equivalent of a blue streak out of her own mouth. She looked questioningly at him, but he wanted her report first.

"Georgian perimeter barrier, Sarge. Runs from that column over there, to the stone lantern. Extends to the 手水 temizu basin," she reported, directing his attention to the cracked fount, now dry and devoid of spiritually cleansing water.

He nodded. She waited, knowing there was something else. Georgian perimeter barrier was no problem. There'd been one protecting the objective, and they had the EM tools along with them to penetrate and override basic electronic locks and barriers. Finally he said, "There's a Qianxia proximity detonator on the gate," as he pulled out the EM toolkit.

Opening the kit, he handed her the appropriate tool for disabling the Georgian barrier. "Soon as you're done, go back to the others." She gave him a sharp look. He was about to do something stupid. He was gonna try to defuse the Qianxia detonator.

"Sarge!" she remonstrated. "You know that UXO course was just an excuse to give you a rest vacation. Brass don't actually expect you to go about defusing bombs."

"It ain't a bomb, Zoe, it's just a detonator."

_And that's different _how,_ exactly? _she asked him with her look.

He gave her a look of his own, and as if to support his position, more explosions and gunfire were heard within the temple complex. Their unit would be found and pinned down if they didn't make it out that gate fairly soon.

"Well, I sure as heck ain't surrendering," he told her. "And it's not like we can call in the bomb squad and wait for them to do the job. It ain't gonna defuse itself, and I don't see who else is gonna do it."

_Sarge! _she protested, this time silently.

"Take down the barrier, then go back and hold with the unit. You'll know when I'm finished."

_Finished. Either he'd succeed and signal an all-clear, or they'd hear him getting blown up._ Zoe acknowledged the Sarge's orders and did her job.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

屁股 pìgu [butts]

聪明 cōngming [brilliant]

手水 temizu [water spring for ritual cleansing (Japanese)]

* * *

_A/N: Did you like the War Story? Books reappearance? The "Jedi mind trick" comes from an interview with Nathan Fillion. Write in the little box and click the button. :-)_


	6. Chapter 6

What Begins with an Apple, Part 3b

_The Sergeant and secrets_

* * *

Because that was Mal. Responsible. Honorable. Always lookin' out for his crew. Or his platoon. Or company. Or, hell, his _regiment._ Because he'd always been that kind of leader, ever since Zoe first met him, early on in the war. Zoe remembered his earnest idealism when he first come to their unit. She remembered it as being rather funny—like he popped up out of one of them cortex dramas where everybody was more wholesome than anyone was in real life. Where fathers were strict but kind. Mothers were loving but firm. Where all the authority figures were respectable and honorable, and nobody was in it for the money or the power or the fame. But Mal had really lived that way, and when he plunked down in their unit, he was like an anachronistic breath of fresh air. He wasn't exactly naïve, but he had a way of assuming that everybody else's motivations were just as honorable as his, and they all worked hard to live up to those expectations. The brass noticed Mal's ability to motivate others, his natural leadership skills, as well as his faith in the cause, and marked him for promotion. When he became their sergeant, his powers of motivation increased still further. And it was in those last four weeks, at Serenity Valley, that their sergeant had been promoted yet again—in Zoe's view, at least. That was why she called him 'sir.'

She still called him 'sir,' though she had long since considered him family. He was her brother, if not by blood kinship, certainly by _blood_. The shared spilling of blood had made them siblings-in-arms, siblings in life. Sometimes people wondered at her use of the word 'sir,' and many of them figured (wrongly, as it happened) that she blindly followed his lead. He might be the commanding officer, but _she_ was the elder sibling. No, the 'sir' did not come from their service throughout the war. He was a sergeant—a rank he had thoroughly earned—and she was a corporal. A corporal didn't 'sir' a sergeant. 'Sir'-ing was for commissioned officers. It was those last four weeks in Serenity Valley that did it. When Mal's command swelled to more than 2000 troops. He had held his eclectic regiment together in the most difficult of circumstances. As far as Zoe was concerned, Mal had been Acting Colonel. He had thoroughly earned that 'sir.'

"Ya just gotta have faith in people," Kaylee was fond of saying. Mal _had…_did he ever. He'd had faith in people, and in God. Mal could be beaten down, defeated, but he didn't give up. He wouldn't give up, and that's what kept him improvising. Always finding a way to keep going when others would have surrendered. At Serenity Valley, he put his heart and soul and one hundred percent effort into it, calling on his last reserves of everything to keep his troops together, to keep them from losing heart, as a desperate situation turned from bad to worse to living hell. And when his last reserves were spent and exhausted, he dug deeper, and somehow came up with more, to give them heart, and keep them from despair. But the cost to him was his faith. No one came, neither god nor human, to pull him out of that hell, and to let him pull the others with him. He'd never truly recovered from that ordeal. Never believed that he'd succeeded. But there were 158 men and women, Zoe among them, who'd walked out of that Valley as living evidence of his success. They _all_ would have died had he not done what he had, in spite of the cost to himself. It was why Zoe would never leave him.

And now he'd just done it again. Routine return to ship gone pear-shaped. Ambush. No advance warning, no plan. Mal's response was completely improvised. He fought off the attackers. He dropped the 混蛋 húndàn who'd shot her. He field-dressed her wounds and_—"when you can't walk, you find someone to carry you."_

She looked over at the sleeping Captain. He'd come down here to keep watch as she slept, no doubt, and yet here she was keeping watch as _he _slept. Watching each other's backs as they had for so many years.

But this time, watching each other's backs hadn't prevented near disaster. They walked right straight into that ambush and didn't see it coming. They were distracted. And now Zoe turned her thoughts to the reason why she had been so gorram distracted from the here and now. It was what Mal had said about Inara. About Inara having secret appointments.

Mal and Inara had quarreled. More than usual. Bigger. Louder. More serious. Most likely, Mal had screwed up and done something stupid, because he just didn't have no sense where women were concerned. She snorted. No, there was no "likely" about it at all. Mal had been an ass. He expected Inara to fall in automatically with his way of thinking, just because he loved her and she loved him. (Zoe was convinced that Inara _did _love Mal. Perhaps even more than Inara had ever loved anybody. But Zoe wasn't sure that was enough.) And knowing Mal—and Zoe did—he had never actually _talked_ with Inara about his expectations. Just assumed she could read his mind.

Mal hadn't reckoned on a woman like Inara having such a different upbringing that she couldn't accept his truths as self-evident. But it was the case. Inara had Zoe's sympathy. Zoe knew full well that it was not easy to live up to Mal's standards. Shadow folk were pretty strict in their notions of what was honorable and what was right, and even if Mal's notions of "right" had drifted a bit since those old days in the war, he still had it in him. But that didn't make it wrong for Inara to have her own standards, and for Inara to resent the implication that her standards were somehow less worthy than the standards of a transport captain living on the edge of legality.

But Inara shouldn't be keeping secrets from Mal. This thing he had mentioned—that Inara was making and keeping appointments with clients, the nature of which she would not tell him—well, that was a problem. If Inara wanted to continue to see clients—_that _Zoe had no objection to. Inara had every right to conduct her business. What Zoe had the problem with was the idea that Inara would continue to see clients, and deceive Mal as to the nature of those appointments. If she wanted to continue to see clients for sex, she should tell Mal exactly what she was doing—and hopefully she would also tell him _why_ she was doing it—so that he could either accept it and live with it, or not accept it, mourn, and move on. It was not fair to keep him in the dark, keep him guessing. Keep him in limbo. He'd already been through that, at the Valley. Zoe had always thought that Inara had a sense of fairness. That she was being anything less than open with Mal about such an important aspect of their relationship surprised Zoe.

The other thing that surprised Zoe was that it seemed that Inara had taken a notion that Mal was fooling around with another woman. Now that was just plumb crazy. Zoe had known Mal since he was twenty-one, and he was no playboy. Sure, she'd teased him—mercilessly—about being puritanical about sex, but his integrity in such matters was actually something that she respected. Mal didn't go to bed lightly with any woman. He tended to put his heart and soul into it, and in consequence he didn't do it unless he meant it. He surely meant it with Inara. Zoe had never seen him in so deep, not even when she first met him and he had declined all invitations on account of he had a steady girlfriend back on Shadow. If Inara didn't understand that Mal had integrity, she was either much less perceptive than Zoe had figured, or she was blinded—at least when it came to Mal—or her judgment was warped. And if that was the case, Zoe figured, she needed straightening out.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

* * *

_A/N: I like a little Zoe POV from time to time. I hope you do, too._


	7. Chapter 7

What Begins with an Apple, Part 4a

_Nightmares_

_A/N: (a reminder that Mal fell alseep in the infirmary in Chapter 5, while watching over Zoe.)_

* * *

The colors were lost from the world, but neither was it black and white: everything was shades of grey. The ruins of the house were covered with harsh, grey dust that swirled up in choking clouds as he walked.

"Malcolm," his mother's voice said, "you left me all alone. Followed in your father's footsteps."

_Where are you, Ma?_ He couldn't see through the swirling grey.

"You left us behind." It was his sweetheart's voice. He reached out his hand toward Mindy's voice, but he couldn't touch the Shadow girl. He couldn't see her, neither. It was getting darker.

"You went out into the darkness. Blacker than the space it moves in. You didn't save us." _Stop it, Ma._

"Mal, you left us behind. You left us here to die." _ Don't say that, Mindy!_

"It's all gone, every last bit." _Ma!_

"Every one of them."

"They're all dead," the disembodied voice said. "Sarge, this is worse than dyin' in battle." Grayson was slumped behind the battered parapet, like the rest of them. "Starving to death. Ain't no point. Bendis was lucky the bullet found him. Better than what Tedesco is going through." He directed his gaze to where Tedesco lay struggling to breathe, with a wound too serious for field treatment. Not that they could have treated it anyway, with their non-existent medical supplies. They didn't have so much as a single pill to ease the pain, and they couldn't even spare Tedesco a bullet. They'd run out of ammo. Mal reached for his gun, but with no bullets, it was no more useful than a stick.

It looked like a stick. He held it in his blue-gloved hand. Two spicules extended from either end. A trickle of blood dripped from Ip Neumann's nose. Ip dabbed at it, and found that blood was seeping from under his fingernails, from his bloodshot eyes, as he bled out from every orifice…

_NO!_ Mal's shout was ineffective. He was too late.

"Это курам на смех (Eto kuram na smekh)!" he pronounced, and River fell down in a slump. Blue hands picked her up and took her. Mal couldn't get through to the lab, where River sat strapped in a chair, with needles and wires affixed to her head, screaming, screaming, screaming.

Her last word was cut off by a scream as the Qianxia detonator went off. Kaylee plummeted from the side of Serenity, her and the unborn baby.

"She was pregnant, Mal!" Simon exclaimed, white with anger. "How could you put her in danger like that? You took her from me—you took her and killed her, and my child. You killed them, you 混蛋 húndàn! They were defenseless, and you killed them like a coward. How do I know you won't kill _me_ in my sleep?"

"I told you already!" he retorted hotly. "If I ever kill you, you'll be awake, you'll be—"

Simon was facing him, and he was armed.

Mal drew his gun and pulled the trigger.

"Simon!" Mal called as he staggered up the ramp. "Simon! Where the hell are you, Doc?"

There was no answer. Mal shifted Zoe's heavy weight on his shoulder and struggled into the infirmary. "Simon! Doc! Zoe needs your help!" He laid her down on the table, and that's when he remembered that Simon was dead. Zoe's body armor hadn't stopped the bullet, and a bloom of red blossomed and spread across her chest. Mal tore open the drawers, looking for bandages, clamps, sutures, anything to stop the bleeding. "You can't stop it," Zoe said faintly. "Now Wash and I match," she added. "Matching holes in the heart."

"No, Zoe, no!" Mal cried, as he pressed a gauze pad on her wound. It soaked through in seconds. She needed fluids. He ransacked the cabinets. Where the 地狱 dìyù did Simon keep all that IV fluid?

"You killed me, sir, just like you killed Wash…just like you killed our baby." Zoe ceased breathing.

"No! No! Breathe, dammit!" Mal tried to administer CPR, but the hole in Zoe's heart would never heal. As Mal watched, helpless and ineffective, the wriggling of the baby in Zoe's belly grew weaker, and ceased altogether.

"Mal, I'm leaving." Inara stood framed in the doorway of the infirmary, an inscrutable expression on her face, as Mal lifted himself away from Zoe's body.

"Inara." He reached for her, but his hands were covered with blood. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't leave." Again, he wanted to take her hand, but his own were covered with blood. He didn't want to ruin her, too. "I don't think I could take it, losing you again."

"Poor Mal. I never said I loved you. Did you really think our liaison meant something?"

He was struck dumb with pain, like a stab in the heart; he could barely breathe as the pain blossomed and spread through his chest.

"Besides, why should I stay? You're a faithless two-timer."

"Inara, don't you know me better than that?" He could barely speak; his throat was constricted with emotion.

"Why would I bother?" she replied lightly. "You're not worth knowing."

"Stay. Stay," he begged. "Let me take care of you. Let me protect you."

"I don't need your protection." Her voice was scornful. "I don't want it. And what does your offer of protection amount to, anyway? You'd try to save me, at the cost of my life. Like you did with my friend Nandi. You can't protect anybody."

She turned and left. He followed her dumbly into the cargo bay, where porters were carrying her luggage down the ramp to a waiting transport. He had a heart-wound, like to be fatal. "Inara," he gasped.

She glanced over at him with a saucy smile, the practiced kind she gave to clients, and linked arms with her red-headed companion. _Saffron._ "He was my beta test case, you know," she remarked to her, shop-talking, "for earning my Continuing Professional Education credits." Saffron gave her a sly smile and nodded knowingly, and Inara continued the tale. "I was able to practice some new techniques, as recommended by the Guild Board of Higher Education." Saffron made some kind of inquiry. "Oh, they were _very_ effective," Inara assured her. "Head-over-heels doesn't begin to describe it. He even made me an offer of marriage." She giggled, and Saffron joined in.

Despite the distance, Mal heard Saffron's response. "But he's already married to _me_, honey!" she stage-whispered.

"More's the pity," Inara commiserated. "Too bad he isn't nearly as good in bed as he thinks he is—we could've had a three-way." A gale of musical laughter spilled from her lips. The two women turned and headed down the ramp, arm in arm. "Now that I've honed the technique, I'm ready to try it with a worthier partner." She stopped at the foot of the ramp and directed her gaze at Mal, her face suddenly serious. "_You_ don't have the cure for what ails me."

"You actually thought she really wanted you," Saffron added with a scornful smile. "You are _such_ an easy mark." Inara joined her in derisive laughter, and they walked away without another backward glance.

Unable to bear it, Mal ran after her across the cargo bay and started down the ramp, but his progress was abruptly halted by an armed Fed. "You are bound by law, under the provisions of the Criminal Code of Law of the Union of Allied Planets."

The Fed's words were backed up by the force of an entire squadron of well-armed, armored Feds, with their weapons all aimed squarely at his heart. "I get to do the honors," Jayne quipped as he appeared from amidst the crowd of Feds. He strode up the ramp and clicked the handcuffs in place, binding Mal's hands roughly behind his back. "Went straight to Badger and sold you out to the Feds. Collected the re-ward."

"They doubled it, on account of our combined evidence being good enough to put you away for life." Badger's smile showed all of his bad teeth.

"This is for what you done to Shepherd Book, Mal," Jayne said. "You hid under the Shepherd's skirts, let him take the fall for you. Ain't no more 'n what a rat's ass like you deserves."

Jayne then proceeded to denude Serenity of valuables, right under his nose, as the Feds held him in custody in his own gorram cargo bay. "This is where he likes to stow the contraband," Jayne remarked conversationally, as he opened up the smuggler's hatch. The Fed took note of the Lassiter, the wobbly-headed dolls, the gen seed, the Alliance stamp on the gold-wrapped nutrition bars, and wrote down each item that Jayne extracted on his electronic tablet, adding it to the list of charges. Jayne pulled out a wad of Federal credit bills. _The stolen Fed payroll. _"This ties you in to that armed robbery on Lilac. People were killed."

"No—"

"Some says it was Reavers killed 'em, but Reavers ain't real."

"I suspect we have the real Reaver right here." The Fed nodded in his direction.

"Not a Reaver—"

"And these here, they're his crown jewels," Jayne remarked with a chuckle. He held the bag of timonium crystals in his hand. "Enough to buy a crap boat like this many times over." He pocketed the bag, picked up the other loot, and sauntered down the ramp.

"Wait!" Mal called, but Jayne didn't. He turned to the Fed, indignantly. "That's evidence! Ain't you gonna seize it?"

The Fed declined to pursue Jayne, and Mal eyed Badger warily as the odious little man strutted about his cargo bay, examining its features like a professional estate assessor.

"We've already got enough evidence to implicate you and all your associates," the Fed pronounced. Mal tried to give nothing away with his expression. The Fed rolled right on over him. "Buck Holden, Jack Holden, the entire Holden Brothers Company, your co-conspirators on Beaumonde." He consulted his list. "Your collaborators on Bandiagara. Mamadou Conteh and Nana Kuyateh, and the rest of the Fajara Village Council."

Mal tried to keep his reaction to himself. They'd traced the whole damn network, traced Serenity's course for the last several weeks. That gorram tracking beacon. He hoped they hadn't gotten as far as—.

"Your accessory on Beylix, Juju Kamara. Melissa Draper and John Houghton on Persephone. And the criminal mastermind of it all, Sir Warwick Harrow."

Mal objected to letting Harrow get the credit for masterminding the operation, but he wasn't in a position to voice his dissent. Everyone who was associated with him, anyone who had done him a good turn recently—they all were implicated, and his fall would take them all down.

"Your ship is forfeit," the Fed pronounced, and Badger turned and grinned gleefully at him. "It will be broken apart and sold for scrap."

Badger gave a sharp whistle, and a dozen of his strapping enforcers stepped into the cargo bay, armed with crowbars.

"You can't do that!" Mal protested, as Badger's crew proceeded to wreck his Serenity, right under his nose. He turned to the Fed. "Due process—"

"You demand due process," the judge intoned from behind the bench. Mal lifted his eyes to the familiar figure. He couldn't see much in the darkened chamber. He couldn't have said if the show-trial was being held in front of all Parliament, or if it was just him standing cuffed and alone in front of the regally elevated bench in the shadowed star chamber.

_Like to kill you myself, I ever see you again._

"It is my duty to inform you," the Operative said, with pity in his soulful eyes, "that I am unable to issue a death sentence. Such mercy is beyond my power." He regarded Mal with sorrowful eyes. "Malcolm, you are not a Reaver. There was a time when I would have wished you an honorable death—death by the sword—but you are no longer worthy of a good death."

_You can't take the sky from me,_ Mal thought.

"You are sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, in the mines of Morar." _Yes, I _can _take the sky from you._ "You will live to a ripe old age and die in your sleep like an ailing pet."

_You're a monster!_

_I don't kill babies. _You _do._

His existence was now confined to an underground prison where he couldn't even see the sky, and he knew he was doomed to live there to an old, old, age, and die alone. But he wasn't ready to give up the last freedom left to him—the choice to live or die. He could always bait the guards into ending him.

He took the first opportunity that offered to assault a heavily armed guard, out in the open, surrounded by all the other guards. They shot him.

He lay groaning on the ground. _Stun only_. He wasn't even knocked out, couldn't even attain the thankful oblivion of unconsciousness. He could see and hear, just couldn't move a muscle as the guard said, "We don't shoot to kill. Ever. You'll be with us for the rest of your life."

"Take him to the prison hospital," the warden said. "Psych ward. Suicide watch."

Mal lay on the hard hospital bed. He blinked his eyes open, taking in the windowless curved walls and lightless grey metallic ceiling of the room. "You tried to die, Meester Reynolds," said a familiar Czech-accented voice.

"Seemed like the thing to do," was Mal's groggy reply.

The old man's bespectacled face leant over his. "When you die, I can't hurt you anymore. And I plan to hurt you for a long, long time."

. . .

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.

glossary

Это курам на смех (Eto kuram na smekh) [That's for chickens to laugh at (Russian)]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

* * *

_Reviews and comments are appreciated._


	8. Chapter 8

What Begins with an Apple, Part 4b

_Therapy and threats_

* * *

_Like Hell…just like Hell, _Mal thought, awakening with a start. He couldn't quite bring to mind the dream—or nightmare—that had provoked that particular thought. Extending his limbs, he looked over to find Zoe stirring. She opened her eyes, spotted him sitting on the chair beside her, then stretched and began to sit up.

"Hey Zoe, what's the news?"

"Feel like to throw up," she replied.

"Back to normal then." Zoe's reaction to this attempt at humor was an entirely internal snort, but Mal understood it perfectly. Didn't stop him from pursuing this particular inside joke. He made to rise. "Good, see ya around."

Zoe reached out as if to mock-punch him. He smiled. That was what he'd been looking for. _Kills me to see you helpless, Zoe. _ "What the hell was goin' on there, Zoe?" he asked, and Zoe immediately understood the context. He meant on Beaumonde, in that back street of New Dunsmuir, when they were ambushed as they made their way back to the ship from Holden Brothers.

"Someone was expecting us to go that way." She'd had little time to make an assessment of the situation, but that was her firm impression.

"How'd they know we were gonna be there?" That question had been bothering Mal ever since the ambush. "That attack was targeted. They were expecting us. Ain't no random act of violence when there are four shooters, and at least one of 'em was armed with a 54R sniper rifle."

_Four? _Zoe's raised eyebrows signaled her wish for more information.

"The one with the rifle, I saw clearly. He'd set up in a covered position. Had drawn a bead on you, Zoe, when you were already down, unable to move. That's why I had to shoot him." He made eye contact. _He was ready to take a kill shot._

"Appreciate that you did, sir."

"I didn't get a good look at the others. Two men and one woman. Too far away to recognize anyway."

Zoe made eye contact with Mal. _Clearly,_ _they knew who we were. _"Reckon they were expecting us."

He nodded. "Trying to think if we got any enemies…"

Zoe raised her eyebrows. _We?_

"Alright," he amended, "if _I _got any enemies there on Beaumonde would feel irritated enough with me to do such a thing."

"Fanty and Mingo?" Zoe suggested. The twins were dead, but perhaps their organization was still alive.

"Operative took them down."

"On your account."

"Wouldn't doubt it. But I don't think Fanty and Mingo's crowd would know it was on account of us—me," he corrected, as Zoe's look bore into him. "Operative's thorough, though. Don't like to leave a mess behind him." Thoughts of the scene on Haven intruded, and he amended grimly, "Or at least he don't like to leave survivors. I'm thinking he mighta took out their whole network. Why? You really think it was some of Fanty and Mingo's people with a chip on their shoulder?" _I don't think it's got nothin' to do with Fanty and Mingo._

_Agreed. _"Sir, what you're doin' with Holden is a dangerous game."

Mal raised his eyebrows. He knew it, but he wanted her to elaborate.

"Said it yourself. Told Buck that you were risking your life and the lives of all your crew, taking on his secret cargo like that."

_哎呀__Āiyā__, it was true_, Mal thought, as clouds of guilt began to darken his face. He himself had recognized what a dangerous game Holden was playing, but had that stopped him from taking on the lucrative and otherwise legal job? No. He just went right ahead and did it anyway. He was such a gorram idiot, and he never learned. Put Zoe and her baby at risk. Again. Waves of guilt rolled over him. "Zoe, I'm sorry, I'm still not thinkin'," Mal began apologetically. "We could wave Holden, tell him we can't—"

"Whatever for?" Zoe interrupted. "We got Holden's crates sittin' in the cargo bay." She gestured through the infirmary window towards the stacks of crates. "Ain't no point in not delivering them." She could already hear Mal's mental cussing as he damned himself for taking on the Holden job. She wanted to nip that one in the bud. Because even worse than Mal taking a risky job, was Mal second-guessing himself about how to handle that risky job. She needed him clear-headed and ready to improvise. "Besides, you were smart enough to negotiate a premium fee for that job."

_You approve?_ Mal's surprise showed in his face.

"Gotta keep flyin'," she stated, with practicality. "Besides, flyin' with those damn crates can't possibly be any riskier than walkin' about the streets of New Dunsmuir on Beaumonde," she added.

Silence reigned for a beat while they both thought about the truth of that.

Mal shifted his position and spoke for both of them. "So you're thinking that attack has something to do with Holden's cargo."

"Damn right I am."

_What? _ That was the big question, really. In what way was it connected?

_Don't know, sir._

. . .

"So, what explanation did he give?" Zoe asked. "He tell you how he come to know a Blue Hand operative?" Mal avoided her gaze, which answered the question plainly. "How is it you ain't talked to him yet?"

"Couldn't find him, Zoe," Mal replied, a bit defensively. "Good thing for him, too. Mighta spaced him, if I found him earlier. But weren't nobody around. Couldn't find nobody on this boat."

Zoe rolled her eyes. _Ain't exactly the biggest boat, sir._

_I wanted your lights on this, Zoe. Knew I was hot-headed. Needed your calm to cool me down. Afore I did something stupid._

_Again._

"Well?" he asked.

Zoe's stomach gave a loud rumble. "Think you could get me something to eat, sir? These are tough questions on an empty stomach."

. . .

Mal had wanted to lay into him. Rough him up. Throttle him. Make him tell all, preferably by violent means. But by the time he finally caught up with Ip Neumann, so much had happened that throttling seemed beside the point. Ironically, he found him in the dining room, right back where he had started when he stormed off the bridge after hearing from River that Ip gorram _knew_ Bill the gorram Blue Hand assassin.

He found the young scientist sitting at the dining table, staring blankly at the wall. _So how is it, Ip, that you're on a first-name basis with one of them gorram Hands of Blue operatives? How did you neglect to mention that? How did you convince him not to follow you and River back to Serenity? Or did you make a deal with him that I don't know about? _All those questions died on the tip of his tongue when he saw the look on Ip's face. Mal recognized that look. It was the look of a shellshocked green soldier who'd just survived his first battle, and couldn't wrap his head around it.

So Mal didn't hit him and demand answers. Instead he sat down opposite him and asked, "You ever kill anyone, Ip?"

Ip shifted his stare to Mal.

"I reckon you haven't," Mal continued. "It's not easy, to watch the lights go out up close and personal like that." It wasn't easy. It was never easy, to kill or to watch someone you counted as a friend kill someone. "Don't blame River. Them Blue Hands wanted to take her. Use her. Abuse her. She was right to fight them."

Ip nodded slowly, but still didn't speak.

"Should talk it out, Ip," Mal advised. "Ain't nobody on this boat but would understand what you're feelin' there, Ip. We all been through it." He couldn't always have said that. But the battle with the Reavers on Ferdinand Moon had done it. Serenity's crew had all had their baptism of fire.

Ip gave him a look, sharper than before. "You don't feel comfortable talkin' it out with me, you find someone else you _can_ talk to. But don't keep it in and let it eat at you until you're hollow," Mal said sagely. Man was still kinda stunned, but Mal could tell that what he was saying was registering.

Mal was surprised hisownself at the wisdom he was professing. _Shoulda followed my own gorram advice_, he thought,_ after Serenity Valley_. If only he'd been so wise back in the day. Well, he weren't, and even if he were, he was dead certain he woulda been too ornery to follow such gorram sensible advice back then. Easier just to leap into that black pit and bury himself there. _Wonder if it woulda helped._

Maybe Ip would talk to him directly, but Mal didn't think it likely. Mal fully expected Ip would seek out River or Kaylee, maybe Simon or Inara, to talk it out. But no matter whom he chose, Mal would get the download.

"I lost my innocence on the battlefield, Ip. Weren't no more than twenty-one, younger than what you are now. Every one of us, Ip, has it in us somewheres. The ability to kill. Just a question of what it takes to awaken the beast within."

Mal stretched and shifted in his chair. So much for the counseling session. Now for the interrogation. He looked Ip directly in the eye. "So, as I understand it, you _knew_ the Blue Hands."

Ip nodded.

"You knew 'em. _Both_ of 'em?"

"Just…one," Ip answered, haltingly.

"Bill," Mal prompted.

"He was…a friend." Ip still spoke as if stunned.

"A friend," Mal repeated. He leaned closer to Ip, looming over him and favoring him with the kind of look that got responses. "You consider this Blue Hand man a friend?"

"Not anymore, Captain." Mal's words and stance carried a certain menace that prompted Ip to speak in his own defense. "Obviously. I know him…_knew_ him. I knew him…when he was Bill. He was never a very close friend, but I always considered him a…" Ip couldn't really finish the sentence. The idea that someone he'd considered a friend had come to kill him in cold blood overwhelmed him. "He isn't Bill anymore," Ip half-whispered, shaking his head.

"Not a friend no more. Friend don't come to kill you in a half-lit alley."

"Wasn't Bill when he came to…kill me. He was…a machine. An unfeeling cog in a big machine, a machine with no 心 xīn, no morality, no…"

. . .

Listening, prompting, questioning, and yes, threatening when he needed to, Mal extracted the story from Ip. How he had met Bill Borjigin at Blue Sun Bernadette, introduced by their mutual friend Hari Nyiri, the Reaver Studies scientist and Ip's best friend from those days. Hari Nyiri, the same friend Ip had contacted, with Mal's permission, to investigate who had purchased the tracking beacon that wound up stuck to Serenity's hull on the way to Bandiagara. Mal prompted Ip to tell how he had done Bill no small favor in helping him find a place to live on that overcrowded world. It turned out that housing on Bernadette was a big deal—and not easy to get unless you had money or connections. Mal in fact recollected that the overcrowding prompted settlers to leave Bernadette every year, giving up whatever amenities that super-urbanized Core world had to offer just for the sake of more living space. With Ip's help, Bill had been able to bypass the waiting lists for housing. Ip had persuaded his aunt to find Bill a comfortable place to live, one that would have been beyond his means, had he applied through ordinary channels. In the alley on Beaumonde, Bill's humanity had surfaced long enough to make him hesitate, and River took advantage of that moment of distraction to dispatch Bill's partner. Putting the pieces together, Mal gathered that Ip had stood up to the Blue Hand man, not just once, but again, insisting that the man let him take River home with him. Mal was in fact impressed by Ip's apparent show of backbone, having the guts to stand up to a man holding a lethal weapon, but he was careful not to show it on his face.

"…so I picked her up and carried her back to Serenity," Ip finished.

Mal nodded. "Did you see what become of the Blue Hand? What'd he do next?"

Ip shook his head. "I looked back at the head of the alley, but Bill was gone."

And there they were with 'Bill' again. "Listen, Ip. Don't think of that man as 'Bill.' He ain't your friend. He done you a good turn there in that alley, letting you go. Had enough of a scrap of humanity left in him to pay off his debt to you. But now the debt's paid. You can't play that card again."

Ip nodded.

"You don't have nothing to do with him in the future. You leave him no trail. You give him no hint of where you are, nor what you are doing. He tries to contact you, you don't respond. And you don't, under any circumstances, attempt to contact him. Not directly—"

"I wouldn't—" Ip began.

"—Not indirectly," Mal continued.

Ip looked puzzled. "How—?"

Mal saw that Ip did not understand the danger and became more explicit. "You got mutual friends with this Blue Hand man. Your aunt. This fellow Hari. Probably a whole raft of Blue Sun folk you know. Don't go talking to your friend Hari about him. You be very circumspect in talking to your Blue Sun friend about _anything._ Talk about old times, your ma and pa, those double dates you went on back in the day…"

"We didn't—"

"Point is," Mal continued, "you don't talk to this Hari friend about _me_, about who you work with now, about River, about this incident with the Blue Hands, about _Bill_ especially—you talk to this Hari about the tracking beacon. That's the only part of our business that's also his business. Is that understood?"

Ip was quiet for a moment, wondering at the Captain's insistence upon secrecy. "Understood, Captain."

Mal wasn't convinced. Motor-mouth Ip was like to talk to anyone and everyone, about things a man had best keep to himself. He pressed further, holding Ip's eyes with his own. "Don't never try to contact this Bill. I don't want you talkin' to no Blue Sun operative. Nor any kind of Operative. Is that clear?"

Ip nodded.

"Because if I do find you been talking to such, I'm gonna kill you."

'_I'm gonna kill you.' _It was just an expression—_'My mother's gonna kill me if I stay out too late'—_wasn't it? Ip was ready to nod again, and laugh it off, but the intimidating expression on the Captain's face took him aback. _What—seriously? _Ip wondered. He looked into the Captain's eyes, searching for the telltale twinkle that would let him know the man was joking. Again he felt a sense of unreality. This was like another one of those bad spy thrillers. _'If you talk, I'll have to kill you.' Is he serious?_ He looked again at the Captain, and gulped. _仁慈的佛__Réncí de Fó, he _does_ mean it seriously._

The Captain stood and loomed over Ip, a hard expression on his face, and gave him a curt nod. Ip was about to speak again when he caught the twinkle in the Captain's eye, just before the man spun on his heel and exited the dining room. _天啊__Tiān ā__, what a __混蛋__húndàn__._ He really had Ip freaked out for a moment there.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

_哎呀 __Āiyā [Damn]_

心 xīn [heart]

_仁慈的佛__Réncí de Fó_ _[Merciful Buddha]_

_天啊 __Tiān ā [God]_

_混蛋 __húndàn [bastard]_

* * *

_A/N: I welcome your comments and reviews._


	9. Chapter 9

What Begins with an Apple, Part 5a

_Talking it out._

* * *

The look on Ip's face was priceless, Mal thought, as he strode up to the bridge to check the course settings. He'd put on a good act, and he had Ip going there, believing he might really kill him if he talked. Mal chuckled darkly at his own twisted sense of humor. Bordered on the cruel, after all Ip had been through. Oh, he really was a bad man.

But it weren't really a joke. It was absolutely necessary to impress upon Ip the seriousness of blabbing his business to strangers. Loose lips…Mal remembered the war-time expression, about how idle chatter made in all innocence could reach the wrong ears, and everybody'd wind up dead. Weren't no joke at all.

Would he really kill Ip if he found him talking to a Blue Hand? Or an Operative? Truly he didn't reckon it would ever come to that. Ip wasn't really a bad sort at all. Shouldn't never come to the point of killing. Well, not unless the man did something really and truly stupid.

Mal knew something about stupid, and it was more than just a passing acquaintance. Fact was, Mal had something of a knack for stupid. Zoe was always telling him—no, not out loud, just with those looks that he understood so well—that he was about to do something monumentally stupid. What no one seemed to comprehend was that doing stupid at that level took a certain kind of talent. Way Mal figured, it had taken him years of practice to attain this level of accomplishment at stupid. A body couldn't maintain this level of achievement at stupid without some dedicated practice, and a thorough understanding of stupidity in all its forms.

Ip weren't stupid. But then again...Ip had a streak of true idiocy about him, when it came to running his mouth. The man had no notion of what he was saying, and to whom. He couldn't control that mouth of his. Always felt the need to talk. He'd cheerfully talk to individuals who were manifestly squirming with discomfort under his interrogation. He'd talk to groups, oblivious to the waves of antipathy he was causing, and never notice until he was swamped by a sea of hostility. He'd open his heart to strangers, and spill his guts, and—this was the part that had Mal worried—he'd spill Mal's guts, too, since he happened to have interrogated said guts or secrets out of him in one or another of the myriad of grill-the-Captain sessions that he'd entertained himself with ever since he first set foot on Mal's boat. Ip was dangerous because he'd managed to collect so much information, and the more so because his naiveté was so disarming and he appeared not to have a malicious bone in his body. Man was a walking, talking landmine of explosive information. Especially with the talking part.

_Huh_. The realization suddenly hit Mal like the concussion of a bomb. _Ip was loaded with explosive information_. And he'd had a life before he came to Serenity. _He'd worked for Blue Sun. _And doubtless done his magic grill-the-boss business long before Mal was the one in the hot seat. Ip was like to have a huge collection of explosive information about his bosses in Blue Sun. About Blue Sun research. About Blue Sun itself. _Sword can cut both ways._ It was time Mal made use of this windfall resource that had landed on his ship. Nope. He wouldn't _never_ be killing Ip. No matter what kind of stupid the man did. Ip's knowledge was bound to be _much _too valuable.

. . .

"You really do have a twisted sense of humor, Captain," River remarked, grinning, as Mal entered the bridge. "You slay me."

Girl musta been listening in on his conversation with Ip. "And you got me laughing fit to kill. Really taken you this long to figure that out, Albatross? And here I thought you were a mind-reading genius."

"I can kill you with my brain." She accompanied the words with her patented creepifying look.

Mal wasn't the least bit taken in. "Oh, yeah, you're killin' me now."

"Don't you think you were a bit heavy-handed with the 'loose lips sink ships' line?" she inquired. "You know, a bit of overkill?"

"Don't be such a killjoy," he shot back. Turning to business, he asked for a status report. "What've you been up to here on the bridge, Albatross?"

"Killing time."

That prompted an eye-roll from the Captain. "Don't you think this particular line of word play has reached a dead-end?"

"Oh, you are dead wrong in that assumption, Captain."

"You gonna earn your keep and answer my question? Or are you just so much dead weight in a pilot seat?"

"If looks could kill—"

"You are a dead duck—"

"Not a duck. _Albatross."_

. . .

Listening to the Captain and River exchange banter on the bridge, Ip was reassured. He _hadn't_ imagined the twinkle in the Captain's eye. It really was some kind of twisted black joke, and the man was not deadly serious about killing him. It somehow made Ip feel better, although he couldn't imagine why a joke about killing him could possibly help, so soon after Bill—no, _not_ Bill, _not_ his friend Bill, he corrected. The _Blue Hand_, the _assassin_—the man really _had_ intended to kill him. He was going to follow the Captain's advice, and talk it out with a friend. Talking _always_ made him feel better.

Ip waited while the Captain checked flight status and course settings with River. Soon after he left to attend to other ship's business, Ip made his way to the bridge.

"River?"

"Come in, Ip. I was expecting you." She gave him a sweet smile.

"Listen. River, the Captain just…" _threatened to kill me_, he didn't quite say, didn't quite believe, "um…" _ordered me, _"advised me, to talk over…" _neck-snapping, friends who come to kill you in an alley, shellshock, _"things…with a sympathetic ear." He looked into her eyes, now a limpid brown, so different from the wild look of the mad girl in the Missing Children picture, from the determined fierceness of the warrior who'd pulled him into the break room and sent him climbing down the wall of a building, from the panicked stare of the cornered quarry who'd kicked and broken the Blue Hand man's neck, and different still from the cloudy incoherence that had overtaken her when she turned all quivery in the aftermath of the Blue Hands' attack. He made his request. "Is there any problem if I make a lengthy long-distance wave?"

River gave the controls a quick check and engaged the autopilot. "No problem."

"May I have some privacy on the bridge?"

"Yes," she answered, giving permission. "You're going to talk with _him_. Your friend."

Ip nodded.

"There is nothing left to see." Ip stared blankly at her, so she translated. _"__Chan 'eil càil an so a' faicadh__."_

He brightened a bit in recognition of his friend's name. River finished setting up the protocol for the long-distance wave, then stood up, ceding the chair to Ip. "Now don't go talking to any Blue Sun Operative," she warned, "nor any Operative. Is that clear?"

Ip gave her a sharp look.

"Because if I do find that you've been talking to such, I'm gonna kill you."

Ip gulped, panicked briefly, but then caught the look in her eye and began snickering, as River exploded into giggles.

"Just an expression, Ip. Hyperbole. Means _get very angry_. No actual killing involved."

"No actual killing," he echoed in relief, although a note of hysteria remained in his voice.

"Can be dangerous to talk. The Captain's trying to protect us."

"Believe me, River, I am in no way eager to have another conversation with Bill. With a Blue Hand operative," he corrected, as he turned to the cortex screen. _Especially not when he's holding one of those awful rod weapons and looking at me like I'm a thing to be 'neutralized.'_

River exited the bridge, leaving him in privacy. He pulled out the electronic calling card and initiated the wave. He needed to talk it out with his friend and mentor, Brother Chan 'eil Càil an so a' Faicadh.

. . .

"…I'm just not sure I'm on the right ship." Ip sighed and pulled a hand through his hair. The young man was clearly in a state of turmoil.

"Why do you think so?" The Operative was careful to keep his voice neutral. He maintained a steadiness, a calmness: the young man seemed to need it. Throughout the young man's narrative of events, he had acted for the most part like a psychotherapist, letting Ip speak what was on his mind, prompting when necessary, avoiding the temptation to inject his own point of view into the conversation.

"When I first took on this job," Ip said, seemingly unmindful of the fact that the job that brought him to Serenity was long since completed, and he could have chosen to leave the ship at any of the ports of call since, "I expected that by now I would have learned all there is to know about Miranda."

The Operative kept silent, but raised his eyebrows as a sign of his interest.

"You told me that the Captain had been to Miranda…"

The Operative gave a sign of assent. They had been over this territory before.

"…but you didn't tell me what a closed-off, ornery, cross-grained 混蛋 húndàn the Captain is!"

The Operative maintained a perfectly calm exterior, but he couldn't help but grin to himself internally. He remembered his boast during his first encounter with Malcolm Reynolds. _You cannot make me angry,_ he'd claimed. _Oh please. Spend an hour with him_, the Companion had retorted in such a tone of exasperation that he ought to have taken heed. He had learned _that_ lesson the hard way.

"And you didn't tell me that the entire crew had been to Miranda," Ip continued.

"Is that so?" the Operative asked, as if it were news to him.

"Yes. Apparently it is. And yet, even now, after spending three months on this boat, I've made very little headway in finding out more about Miranda. And to add to the frustration, I haven't been able to get the Captain to open up about Shadow, either."

"Have you—" the Operative began, but Ip cut him off with a gesture.

"And it's not just that." Ip's voice rose as he exclaimed, "They tried to kill me!"

"The crew?" The Operative allowed himself to show some surprise.

"No, not—although the Captain did say he was going to kill me if I—but I think he was joking," Ip responded. "They tried to kill me on Beaumonde. Me and River. The Blue Hands."

"Blue Hands?"

"Yes. Blue Hands. They're some kind of secret operatives. They work for Blue Sun."

"How do you know they work for Blue Sun?"

"Because I _knew_ one of them. From when _I _worked for Blue Sun. Bill. Bill Borjigin."

This was _most_ interesting. Ip didn't know it, but he might very well be the only living person in the 'Verse who could positively identify a Blue Sun special operative by name. Because so few lived to tell the tale of their encounter. And how many of those actually knew, _by_ _name_, the man who came to kill them? "You _knew_ him? But you astonish me, my friend. They really tried to kill you?" He expressed as much personal concern as he could in his voice. Apparently, Ip felt reassured, because when he continued the tale, his voice was a little steadier.

"They were going to kill me. I really can't imagine why. Although clearly it had something to do with River. They wanted to kill me and kidnap her. 天啊 Tiān ā," he said, shaking his head, and holding it in his hands. "I seem to have acquired some really dangerous friends. I really should just get off this boat as soon as we reach Bernadette."

And there it was. This was _exactly_ the line of thinking that it was his duty to counter. He chose his words carefully. "You want to go home."

"Yes."

"You're thinking it might be safer."

"Yes," Ip breathed. "I—I'm—well, I've made friends here. River and Simon and Kaylee and…I like it here. But it's too dangerous. River's an interesting girl, smart and witty and—she understands me. Like no one I've met before. But…she _killed_ a man. Killed…"

"Tell me about it."

Ip was silent. At last he spoke, reluctantly, as if afraid of divulging too much. "I…well…River and I were returning to the ship from the university."

"University?"

"Dunsmuir University. We took on a scientific cargo—an in-flight experiment." He stopped, reconsidered what he was about to say, then continued. "Two men in suits set upon us in an alley. They were wearing blue gloves. Blue Hands."

The Operative nodded.

"One of them—Bill—pulled out a weapon—a rod—some kind of advanced sonic weaponry, I imagine. He was going to kill me with it." Ip was having difficulty with the telling, the Operative could see, but he could see it was cathartic as well. The telling was drawing the poison from the wound. "But then I looked in his face, and recognized him. I greeted him."

"Greeted him? You said hello?"

"I…called him by name. He wasn't expecting that. He…hesitated." Ip paused. "River launched herself at the other man right at that moment. Broke his neck. Killed him." Ip looked sick, like he might throw up.

The Operative gave him a moment to recover. "Has it occurred to you that she killed him to save your life?"

Ip was silent, looking down. Finally, he looked up. "Yes."

. . .

.

.

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glossary

_Chan 'eil càil an so a' faicadh_ [There is nothing left to see (Scottish Gaelic)]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

天啊 Tiān ā [God]

* * *

_Thanks for reading. Leave me a note._


	10. Chapter 10

What Begins with an Apple, Part 5b

_To stay or not to stay, that is the question._

* * *

"How do you know they were after River?"

Ip paused and considered. "I—well, I guess I don't. But why would they be after me?"

The Operative considered. It was clear the Blue Hands had not expected to encounter Ip Neumann with River Tam, for had they known his identity, they would not have sent an operative with such antecedents. It was unclear where the Blue Hand man's loyalties would lie when the chips were down. With Blue Sun, his trainers and handlers? With Ip, his friend? The Operative fully intended to research the complete history of Bill Borjigin: his life before his recruitment as a Blue Hand operative, and what could be discovered of his activities since entering the corporate sphere. If Borjigin survived the fall-out from the debacle on Beaumonde, he would face many professional obstacles. (The Operative knew a thing or two about survival and recovery in the aftermath of a secret retrieval operation gone pear-shaped.) There was no doubt that Borjigin would face some serious challenges, and it remained to be seen what the mettle of the man was. He might very well crack at the first hard knock. And no matter what Borjigin told or didn't tell his handlers about the encounter on Beaumonde, the Blue Hands now had the means to identify Ip Neumann and his connection with River Tam. It was possible they would make some of the connections he himself had made, if they looked in the right direction. The Operative felt the pressure was on to hasten the process that he had set in motion a few months ago on 尘球 Chén Qiú when he first placed Ip Neumann into contact with Malcolm Reynolds.

He kept these thoughts to himself. It was best not to reveal what he knew. It would be far better for Ip to make the realizations himself. He took a different tack. "So, you're thinking of getting off the ship at Bernadette," he remarked, side-stepping Ip's question. "Is that your next port of call?"

"Yes. Well, first we have to drop off a shipment on—" Ip cut himself off and gaped a moment, as if considering whether he had already revealed too much. "—Another place," he continued, "but yes, then it's on to Bernadette."

"And you want to go home."

"Yes."

"Because home is safer."

"Safer?" Ip gave the point careful consideration. "My parents live on Bernadette. My family. My friends. I grew up there, went to school there. Went to university there, got my first job there. It's home."

"Your first job, working for Blue Sun."

"Well, yes, working for Blue Sun. But not…"

Ip was starting to get the point. The Operative worked at him, gently, a very light touch.

"Blue Sun. The same corporation that just sent a hit man to kill you."

"They weren't after _me_—"

"You know that? You're certain of it?" Might as well get him in the right frame of mind for his new reality.

Ip was silent.

"If you return to live on Bernadette, stay with your parents, resume your old contacts—how do you know they won't come after you again?"

"Bill said he wouldn't—"

"_Bill said?"_ the Operative echoed. It was a delicate balance. He'd selected Ip for his naiveté, his manipulability, as well as his particular knowledge. But Ip was no good to him if the Blue Hands killed him first. "Why do you trust what Bill says?"

"I don't—"

"Is Bill in charge? When Bill reports back to his superiors that he let you and River escape, what do you think they will do?" Ip stayed silent, thinking, as the Operative continued with his carefully calibrated line of leading questions. "Do you think they will say, 'Good call, Bill, we trust your judgment'? Do you not think they will try again? Send someone else? Someone who won't be distracted by old ties of friendship?" The Operative paused.

Ip contemplated him for a moment through the cortex screen, then gave a little shake of his head.

"If you stay on Bernadette," the Operative cautioned, "seek employment there, and resume your old habits, I believe you are simply making it easier for them to track you down. It's one of the first places they will look."

Ip looked alarmed. "Perhaps we shouldn't even go to Bernadette. I should tell the Captain—"

"No, no, Ip," the Operative chuckled. "_That_, I think, is a stroke of genius. They will hardly expect you to be heading straight for Bernadette directly after this attack. Your Captain is an expert in sideways thinking, I do believe."

"You mean, they won't expect it."

"Oh no, they won't expect it. So go ahead. Visit your family. Visit the university and talk to your professor. Get re-charged. But don't stay—and don't give them advanced notice of your arrival. Your best bet is to keep moving. Until there is no longer a reason for these operatives to try to track you down."

. . .

Mal knew that Ip would talk, but he didn't expect it to happen so quickly. He also didn't expect that Ip would talk it out with someone off the ship. Mal didn't expect that Ip would turn to his friend the Buddhist monk. Brother Khan-Ale-Cal or whatever the man's name really was.

But so it was. Ip asked River's permission to use the cortex on the bridge in privacy, and spent a good thirty minutes or more talking it out with the man. So Mal didn't hear the full version of what Ip had to say about the events that transpired in the alley at Dunsmuir University. But whatever was said apparently comforted Ip. He lost his blank stare, and was able to speak again—not quite his normal self, but close enough that Mal no longer feared he'd become the hollow shell he'd mentioned.

It bothered Mal that Ip had mentioned the incident to anyone outside the crew of Serenity.

. . .

The talk with Brother Chan 'eil Cail had helped, but Ip still felt that panic and hysteria weren't far from the surface, even so. His friend did not have full information. Although it went against his natural inclination (which was to speak openly, without holding back), Ip had taken the Captain's threats seriously, and he was acutely conscious of what he had _not_ told. He'd left out a lot of the details about Bill, he hadn't divulged the ship's destination, and he hadn't mentioned anything that Simon had told him about River's experiences at a government-sponsored academy, the one that was apparently funded or otherwise supported by Blue Sun Corporation. It was this Academy that apparently wanted River back, and wanted her back so much as to be willing to try all kinds of methods—criminal "wanted" bulletins, missing persons reports—to discover her whereabouts. It was also this same Academy that apparently sent the Blue Hands operatives to retrieve her. Operatives who were willing to kill witnesses or anyone else who stood in their way.

He couldn't imagine that such actions were legal, and it didn't mesh with the picture of Blue Sun Corporation that he thought he knew. Were there corrupt divisions within Blue Sun? The corporation was gargantuan, and he would not be surprised if the left hand of Blue Sun had no idea what the right hand was doing…much less the pinky toenail being aware of the actions of the gallbladder. (It occurred to him that the absurd comparison reflected his near-hysterical state of mind). How far did the cancer extend within the body of Blue Sun? How extensive was the corruption?

Talking about it had given him a superficial calmness, but it hadn't really made the issue go away. Intrigued by the tales his friend the Buddhist monk had hinted at when he first met him three months ago on 尘球 Chén Qiú, Ip had wanted more than anything to board this ship, Serenity, and learn about the Captain's visit to Miranda. He'd thought a single journey would be enough to interview the witness, incorporate the gleanings from that interview into his research, and—if he was lucky—provide him with the kind of clue that would let him break the case as to what had really happened on Miranda. But it had not been so simple.

The Captain wouldn't talk. The crew wouldn't talk. They all knew something about it, that much was clear. The Captain had as good as said it: they had all been to Miranda.

They had _all_ been to Miranda. The Captain was born and raised on Shadow. To meet with people who could give him first-hand accounts of these places had been his dream ever since he first became aware of the pivotal position these two worlds occupied in the field of terraformology.

Now he was faced with a dilemma, and he was more uncertain than ever.

On the one hand, staying on Serenity gave him the opportunity to do some research of great potential importance. The pay was very irregular, and occasionally he wondered how he could possibly describe this interlude on his resumé in a way that would satisfy a future employer. _"I took a not-entirely-voluntary leave-of-absence from my profession, and extended it beyond reason." _An unbiased observer would probably advise him to abandon the project now and seek out a steady tenure-track position with better job security. Yet the lure of a breakthrough on Miranda and Shadow was a strong one. Publishing the key to either one of those disasters would make the career of any terraformologist.

On the other hand, staying on Serenity had just very nearly gotten him killed. While he had eventually become aware that not all of the Captain's business dealings were strictly legal, it still didn't explain why the ship and its crew had attracted so much negative attention on Beaumonde. Besides the encounter with the Blue Hands, there was Simon's implication as a "person of interest" in the supposed abduction of his sister; the attempted sabotage of the ship; and the assault on the Captain and Zoe.

He would have to be crazy to want to stay aboard. And yet, he had never felt so comfortable, so at home. These people felt like family, and in Simon and River, he had found some very good friends. He enjoyed his frequent conversations with Simon about all kinds of aspects of science. Simon's interests were focused on medical sciences, of course, but he was always up for intellectual conversation. A person of sharp, sarcastic wit, Simon was nonetheless a man with a deep-seated need to help people, as evidenced by the care he always showed for his sister. He was a good man.

River—well, she was just about the most fascinating person Ip had ever met. He knew that she was not, strictly speaking, "normal." But for Ip "normal" had always had a rather fluid definition. His whole life had been lived amongst people who defied classification in "normal" categories—from his highly intellectual professor mother to the over-the-top gregariousness of his father's side of the family, not to mention his own sister Keiko, who had permanently skewed Ip's idea of what "creative thinking" entailed. Ip had grown up believing that some degree of oddness was to be expected of all people, and that if a person appeared to be normal, it was simply that he or she hadn't yet revealed what their oddity was. The way River's mind worked was a subject of wonder to Ip. "Genius" was a word that was tossed around easily to describe many intelligent people who didn't truly deserve the label, and Ip had developed a distaste for the word. But River's genius was of the Renaissance variety: wide-ranging knowledge, profound depth, sharp wit, and labyrinthine thought processes, all moving at the speed of light. Ip had found her mental processes to be intriguing right from the start, albeit a bit disconcerting. The better he got to know her, the more he felt that getting to know her well would be the journey of a lifetime.

This made it all the more distressing to see how off-balance River seemed in the aftermath of the attack on Beaumonde. He didn't know how or why it had affected River this way, and honestly, the prospect of imminent death had precluded his making much in the way of observations. But whatever had happened there had had a clear negative impact on River's mental status. Ip's upbringing had made him familiar with wildly creative imaginations, and he knew that such minds often sat at a saddle point, an unstable equilibrium. Sometimes only a slight perturbation was enough to set such a mind spiraling out of control. River seemed to be struggling to control her own thought processes in the aftermath of Beaumonde. She was having difficulty expressing herself clearly, and he could tell that she was frustrated with this state of affairs. He wished he had the key that could bring her back to her point of equilibrium.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

尘球 Chén Qiú [name of a world]

* * *

_A/N: Last chapter before the action heats up. And what does the Operative mean about "the process he set in motion months ago"? Your speculations (and reviews) are welcome._


	11. Chapter 11

What Begins with an Apple, Part 6a

A/N: With particular thanks to my friend Julie, Official Fowl Consultant and Chicken Wrangler Extraordinaire, for contributing her expertise and wit to the chicken-y portions of this fanfic. Any mistakes and inaccuracies are not her fault.

_Nobody here but us chickens._

* * *

It was late in the day when Mal finally remembered about the chickens. He'd just grabbed a couple of apples from the bowl on the dining room table and cut them into slices. As he walked down toward the infirmary and cargo bay, he savored a couple of the crunchy, juicy pieces. Jayne surprised him with his generosity sometimes. Musta paid for the apples outta his own pocket, 'cause Mal hadn't given him no budget for luxury items like fresh fruit when he sent him to re-stock Serenity's supplies on Beaumonde.

Shoulda checked on the chickens the first night in the Black, before turning in. Chickens left unfed started to turn mean and vicious. But it had been, by any standards, one helluva day, and he'd barely made it to his bunk. Fell asleep with all his clothes on, including his boots. Woke up feeling groggy and guilty—guilty about sticking Inara with the night watch, guilty about Zoe getting shot, guilty about allowing River and Ip to walk into danger, guilty about Kaylee's close call discovering the detonator as she worked on the ship. Then River dropped the bomb about Ip's _friend_ Bill the gorram Blue Hand assassin, and by the time Mal was finished rocketing around the ship, it was getting on in time. Eventually, having made the rounds and settled everybody (including himself) back on a more-or-less even keel, it was evening. And Zoe was hungry. Mal went up to the galley to rustle up something to eat. Most handy was the apples Jayne had bought, so Mal grabbed a couple of them and sliced them up.

And that is how he found himself remembering, of a sudden, that there were two crates of live chickens in his cargo bay as hadn't been checked on, watered, or fed in at least twenty-four hours, and probably longer if they'd been brought in from afar before they were delivered to Serenity. Gorram chickens.

After delivering the apple slices to Zoe, Mal headed straight to the cargo bay. "Alright, let's see what we got in here," he muttered to himself as he sprung open the latches and lifted the lid.

"Nobody here but us chickens," answered a voice from within the crate.

"Gah!" Mal jumped out of his skin and the lid went clattering to the floor of the cargo bay, as a wave of excited squawking erupted amongst the startled chickens. He wasn't scared—just startled beyond measure. A body don't expect chickens to speak. He looked into the crate, and there, sitting amongst the settling chickens, was Saffron.

His first instinct was to slam the lid back on and bolt it tight until they reached Hektor and got the gorram crate off his boat. But he'd already noticed that, despite her smart remark, Saffron looked miserable. She looked just as droopy as the birds surrounding her. She made no move to stand up and he reckoned she was too stiff to do it. Can't be no fun to sit locked in a four-foot-high chicken crate for a day and a half.

"Please," she begged, looking up at him, "help me out, Mal."

He stared down at her, silent. At her _face_, gorrammit, not at her low-cut blouse and 馒头 mántóu. Ammonious fumes wafted out of the crate. A chicken hopped onto Saffron's shoulder and plucked at her hair.

"Get me out of this box," she pleaded in a miserable voice, waving her hands in a half-hearted attempt to fend off the chicken. Mal guessed she'd made the gesture hundreds of times in the last thirty hours.

"Like hell," he responded, aiming for hard-edged 混蛋 húndàn, but falling far short of the mark.

"I won't cause any trouble," she promised. "Just let me out of this…" she cast a miserable glance around at her malodorous surroundings as she sat stiffly in the straw, now scattered with chicken droppings and crowded with droopy-looking fowl.

"Woman, you are off your nut," he countered, but his heart wasn't really in it. He remembered with perfect clarity the havoc that resulted when Saffron got loose on Serenity, and he was in no way eager for an encore performance. If he let her out, he did so in the full knowledge that she would take advantage of any bit of freedom she was given and screw them over just as fast and fully as she was able. But it just didn't sit right with him to keep a human being—_any_ human being, even Saffron—confined to a filthy chicken crate for the duration of the journey to Hektor. It was cruel. And he wasn't cruel. Well, not _that_ cruel.

"Mal, you gotta let me out of here."

"Ain't gonna happen."

"Won't you let your own wife out of a cage?"

"You ain't my wife!" he exclaimed, his voice rising.

"Married me, didn't you?"

"Me and every man in the galaxy!" he exclaimed. "你是公共汽車 Nǐ shì gōng gòng qì chē."

"What kind of husband locks his wife up in a box?" she asked indignantly.

"I did _not_ lock you up—" he exclaimed, forgetting to counter the 'husband' part of her rhetorical question. "How'd you get in there, anyway?"

"Help me out."

"I ain't lettin' you—"

"Wait 'til they hear you keep your wife locked in a filthy chicken c—"

"I do no such thing! And you ain't my wife!"

"Please, Mal—hubby—"

"We are _not _married!"

"爱人 Àiren, you gotta let me out of here. You can't keep me cooped up—"

"Don't see why not—"

"Cruel husband! Might as well kill me now…" She began weeping.

"I ain't killin' you!" he exclaimed, completely disconcerted. "What kind of crappy place—now will you _stop_ that?"

"Better kill me now, husband," she moaned. "Better to die now than waste away in a chick—"

"Now cut that out."

"—kept locked in a box, pecked by the cruel beaks—"

"Will you shut up?! Those ain't Reaver chickens." He couldn't help but notice that several chickens were, in fact, walking on Saffron, pecking repeatedly at her skin, hoping to discover that _this_ time, one of her freckles was really a delicious bug to eat. He felt like he was completely spun about. He looked around the cargo bay, hoping to find an ally—and saw Inara. She had come partway down the stairs from the catwalk. He didn't know how much of the exchange she had witnessed. "You make a move, any move at all, and I will riddle you with holes," he told Saffron, his gun hand hovering over his holster. Keeping Saffron in his peripheral vision, he went right over to Inara and conferred with her in a whisper.

"Inara—" Mal began, quietly, urgently.

"You brought your _wife_ back aboard, I see," she hissed back at him. "Are you going for a harem? Want to be cock of the walk?"

"I ain't—she ain't—Inara, that ain't fair!" he hissed back at her.

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair. That's exactly what it looks like," Inara responded.

"Listen, I'm tired a' walkin' on eggshells around you, Inara. This woman's bad news. She'll steal the ship and leave us for dead if we give her the chance."

"You can't keep her cooped up in a box for a week, Mal."

"Can, too. And it ain't even a week to Hektor, it's only four more days."

"Mal!" she hissed.

"I ain't lettin' her out. You know what happened last time she got loose on the boat."

"She disabled Serenity and left you for dead in the desert."

"I _wasn't_ dead, I was only—"

"And _I _had to ride to your rescue, when she left you stranded in the middle of nowhere with no clothes!"

"C'mon, Inara. You enjoyed that," he said meeting her eye, challenging her to admit which part of that she had enjoyed the most.

Inara was in no mood for games with Mal. "Yes," she hissed. "I _enjoyed_ it. It was delightful to be a Big Damn Hero for once."

"Bein' a Big Damn Hero ain't all it's cracked up to be. Heroes got to make the tough calls. Like leavin' that evil double-crossing snake locked up in that box where she belongs."

"You can't leave a human being locked in a chicken coop, Mal."

"Can't I?" he responded, defiantly.

"Oh, for god's sake, Mal, can't you at least _act_ like a decent human being?"

He held her stare—god, she was so beautiful and full of fire, madder 'n a wet hen as she was, and—she would probably clock him if he tried to touch her. He backed down. "'Course I can, Inara. I'm just sayin' what I wish I could do. She's gotta come outta the crate, but I can't let her loose on the ship. She's gonna hafta stay locked up in one of the passenger dorms. She gets out, she'll muck up the engine, muck up the helm, blow the airlock and leave us all for dead while she flies the coop on one of our shuttles."

. . .

Saffron couldn't hear what Malcolm Reynolds was saying to that 泼妇 pōfù Companion of his, but she could read their body language perfectly well. And it was instantly apparent to her that the situation had changed since she was last aboard Serenity. They were lovers. She couldn't see his face full-on, but his gestures, as he nearly touched Inara, were loving and intimate, and her face, despite its carefully schooled expression, lit up as she spoke to him, her emotions revealed in her eyes. The crackling hot sexual tension between them was just about palpable, as they hissed and whispered and spat words at each other. Saffron took it all in, as she shooed away yet another chicken that came to pluck at her hair. She could tell that their relationship was still new, still fragile, easily shaken—and easily broken. She was careful to hide her smile. This job would be more of a pleasure than even she had imagined—and she had a _very_ vivid imagination. She could drop the "hubby" come-on to Mal, although it would still be fun to annoy him. It would be much more satisfying for her to scuttle their relationship. She began to calculate what she could do to get them beyond arguing with each other—and take them to permanent estrangement. It was all in how you played the game. It almost made up for having to stow aboard among the gorram chickens.

She tried to move her legs—she was _so_ cramped. Another pair of those awful chickens was pecking at her freckles again. She was careful to keep her triumph to herself, as Malcolm Reynolds strode back over to the chicken crate. She cast a sad, miserable, pleading look up at him.

"Please…" she whispered, with an expressive look, somewhat diminished by the feeble swat she made at yet another chicken.

"I will let you out only if you agree to my conditions," he said in a loud, captain-y voice. "You're to stay confined to a room in the passenger dorm at all times. You may leave the room only for meals and to visit the head, and only under escort. Is that understood?"

She nodded, weakly.

"You can get outta the box now."

She made no move, but let the tears well in her eyes, fully aware of the audience she was playing to.

"Now what is it?" he demanded, again aiming for hard-boiled, and again missing the mark, as her tears found their target.

"I…can't…get up," she said haltingly.

With a huffing of annoyance tinged with pity, Mal reached down into the box to give her a hand. Saffron allowed him to haul her up, caressing the hand that helped her. She lost her balance just as she reached her full height so that she careened into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her to steady her, then recoiled at the closeness of her position, and the smell. Saffron delighted in the play of emotions on his face as abashed confusion and instinctive physical desire chased annoyance. But she kept her thoughts carefully to herself, lowering her eyelashes and sniffling.

"I'm…faint with hunger." She wobbled into him again, making sure to rub against his sensitive regions as she swooned.

He caught her, steadied her, and spoke soothingly, trying not to breathe through his nose. "Sshhh, ssshhh, we'll get you fed, and bathed—" He broke off, embarrassed by his own suggestion of bathing. "Not nobody deserves to be stowed in a chicken crate. Who put you in there, anyway?" he demanded.

"It's a long story," she said faintly, rolling her eyes up into their sockets as she collapsed limply in his arms.

"Get Simon," Mal said to Inara. He picked up Saffron and carried her into the infirmary.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

馒头 mántóu [steamed buns (boobs)]

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

你是公共汽車 Nǐ shì gōng gòng qì chē [Slut (lit., "You're a public bus," i.e. "You get around, and everyone has had a ride")]

爱人 Àiren [Spouse, Lover]

泼妇 pōfù [shrew, bitch]

* * *

_A/N: She's baaaack! Oh no! I want to thank Nutluck, from Fireflyfansdotnet, for introducing the phrase "Reaver chickens" and (dare I say it?) egging me on. Now, how about a review? Fair or fowl, whatever feedback you provide is welcome. Whether you type like lightning or have to hunt and peck. :-)_


	12. Chapter 12

What Begins with an Apple, Part 6b

A/N: Again, more thanks to my friend Julie, Official Fowl Consultant and Chicken Wrangler Extraordinaire, for her contributions to the chicken-y portions of this fanfic. Also, thanks to the readers and reviewers at Fireflyfans dot net for their hilarious speculations about the chickens…a number of them found their way into this chapter.

_Just us chickens._

* * *

"So, the Captain's wife stowed away in one of them chicken crates. Didn't much like bein' cooped up, did she?" Jayne remarked as he entered the passenger lounge, glancing into the infirmary, where Simon was tending to Saffron. Most of the rest of the crew were already gathered outside the infirmary. Zoe, with her knee in a brace, lay on the sofa.

"She is _not _my wife," Mal countered, defensively.

"Bet that put her in a 'fowl' mood," Jayne chuckled, ignoring his protest, as the others groaned.

"Captain married her on Triumph, near two year ago," Zoe filled in, not-so-quietly, for Ip's benefit.

Mal's reaction was immediate. "Zoe, cut that out. That marriage was invalid from the word go."

Ip stretched his eyes. "You really did marry her?"

"I was tricked!" Mal exclaimed, almost a whine. "That evil snake has married half the men in the galaxy, just to take advantage of them. Ain't none of those marriages real."

"Was real enough when you let her cook for you and be your nubile little slave girl," Zoe returned, not missing a beat. "Was real enough when she took to your bed."

"I will _not _put up with this," Mal said, trying to glare at Zoe at the same time as he shot a guilty look at Inara, who would not make eye contact. Neither the glare nor the look was very effective. "You're misleadin' Ip." He glared at Zoe again. "You're not playin' fair."

"Cap'n had a little make-out session with—" Kaylee began.

"I was poisoned!" Mal exclaimed. "Y'all are makin' Ip think I was some kind of evil lecherous hump."

The idea had of course not occurred to Ip before the Captain suggested it, but now he was intrigued, and wanted to know the full story. "Why would I think you were an evil, lecherous—?"

"Captain?" Simon leaned out of the infirmary and beckoned Mal in.

. . .

"She's a bit dehydrated, and there are some abrasions—and peck marks—on her arms and legs that are a bit infected, but otherwise, there's nothing a shower and a good meal won't fix," Simon informed the Captain. Saffron lay on the infirmary bed with her eyes closed. "She won't tell me how she came to be in the chicken crate," Simon added quietly, for the Captain's ears only.

Mal responded with a hard look, then he spoke aloud. "Good. Right. Well. I'll, uh, I'll have someone make up a room for her. Probably just wants to…" He paused, unsure whether to offer the meal, the bath, or the bed as the first option.

Simon took over. "Someone should escort her to the shower first. Then she needs a meal—she said she hasn't eaten in more than twenty-four hours. After that she can get some rest in a proper bed."

"You're not foolin' nobody, Saffron," Mal said. "Get up. One of the ladies will escort you to the shower."

. . .

"—naked as the day he was born!" Snorts and guffaws drowned out the rest of the tale.

"Kaylee," Mal called out, interrupting what was obviously a hilarious gathering in the passenger lounge, clearly at his expense. Inara was the only one who wasn't looking amused. "You willin' to lend Yo-Saff-Bridge here somethin' clean to wear? And maybe bring some soap and uh, y' know, woman-bathing things…"

Zoe snorted with laughter, earning another glare from the Captain. Kaylee, wearing a huge grin, responded, "One dress and woman-bathin' things comin' right up, yessir, Cap'n Tightpants," and went off to her bunk.

"Ya need any help doin' a strip search, Cap'n?" Jayne offered. "After all, she's the 狐狸精 húli jīng in the henhouse, ain't she?" Jayne chuckled at his own wit and leered unabashedly at Saffron.

Mal favored him with a withering look, then addressed the assembled crew. "For those of you ain't met her yet, this here's Saffron, also known as Bridget, also known as Yolanda, also known as con-woman of the first order. She is confined to her quarters at all times while she's aboard this ship. She's allowed out for meals and visits to the shower and head, only, and no other reason. And she ain't allowed out at all without escort."

"She's a liar." River's voice sounded through the comm. "A liar and a thief."

"That she is, Albatross," Mal agreed, and glared at the assembled crew. "You turn your back on her for a second, she'll get the drop on you. Like to steal the ship out from under us, and we'll all find ourselves floatin' back to Beaumonde." Saffron somehow managed to combine a pouty face with a winsome smile, and directed this look primarily at the male members of the crew. "It's true," Mal reinforced. "This woman is dangerous, cold as ice, and dead crazy on top of it. Don't trust her out of your sight." As Kaylee re-appeared carrying a towel, a dress, and some sundries in a basket, Mal addressed himself to Saffron. "Alright, go get yourself clean." He gestured towards the shower door, just off the passenger lounge, then turned to his crew. "Seems to me y'all got jobs to do, go do 'em. Jayne, go feed the chickens."

. . .

Luxuriating under the hot water spray, Saffron contemplated the success of her mission so far. It was going very well now, despite having gotten off to a very bad start with no one checking on the chickens for so long after the crates were brought aboard. She'd counted on Malcolm Reynolds to be more conscientious. A couple hours among the chickens was bad enough, but tolerable—an inconvenience she'd been willing to put up with, given the rewards she would reap from playing this game. But a day and a half among the fowl was true misery. Saffron didn't "do" misery. Misery was for other people. She hadn't been acting, not completely. When Malcolm Reynolds lifted the lid off that crate, she could have kissed him, she was so grateful. And gratitude toward Malcolm Reynolds—that was not a feeling she wished to have anything to do with, near nor far. Kissing Malcolm Reynolds, on the other hand…

"Hey! Yo-Saff-Bridge! You plannin' on usin' up all the water on this boat?" Malcolm Reynolds's irritated voice was accompanied by banging on the shower door.

"Come on in, sugar," she called out, adding, "I'm naked."

The banging stopped.

Keeping the water running, Saffron took the time to secrete several items that she had carried in her clothing in various places in the shower room. This was one of the places on the vessel that she would have regular access to, and it was less likely to be searched for contraband than the room that would serve as her cell. The chicken crate was already loaded with a vast array of tools and toys, many of which were still stowed in their hidden compartments, but she would only be able to access them when she managed to score an unescorted excursion around Serenity. Not that that would be all that difficult. She was really looking forward to playing the game.

"Make yourself decent and come on out."

Saffron was delighted to find that her…assets…barely fit within the confines of Kaylee's dress. Another advantage in playing the game. She opened the door suddenly and walked squarely into Mal as he leaned in to begin knocking again.

"Oh! Didn't expect you to be so…close, sweetie." She handed her dirty clothing to an astonished Kaylee with a condescending nod. "Search me?" she offered, raising both her hands, which hiked up the dress to show a considerable length of bare thigh. An embarrassed flush rose in Mal's face as he attempted to perform a business-like pat-down in front of his guffawing crew, who, needless to say, had not dispersed to perform their jobs. Saffron assisted by moving slightly so that his hands came into firm contact with her backside.

"You missed a spot," she hummed, her voice super sexy, as she writhed into him.

Mal removed his hands as if they were burned, but his only response to Saffron was a glare. Zoe hooted with laughter, which earned _her_ a glare. "You're gonna be cleaning the latrine with your face, you don't cut that out, Zoe," he called. "Start walkin'," he ordered Saffron, and marched her off to the passenger dorm room. "Someone'll come fetch you for dinner," he told her, and locked her in.

. . .

Saffron didn't waste any time. As soon as the door was closed, she investigated the room from one wall to another, floor to ceiling. The passenger dorm rooms didn't have private heads, which was all to the good as far as Saffron was concerned. The nearest head adjoined the shower where she'd hidden her tools, and that meant that she'd have a reason for frequent access.

The room itself had potential. The walls were a lightweight paneling, as was the ceiling, and as she stood on the bed running her fingers over the surface, she detected a break in the ceiling panel. With a little work, she decided, she could work it loose. Going over the details of the late model 03 Firefly in her head, she planned her next move.

With a satisfied smile, she lay back on the bed and stretched out to her full length for the first time in a day and a half. Inspector 代號 Dài Hào was an ass. And his aptly named minion Pugh was even stupider. Of all the asinine, 缺心少肺 quēxīnshǎofèi, 白目的 báimùde, 愚不可及 yúbùkějí modes of entry, they had to think of stowing aboard inside a chicken crate. A chicken crate! Filled with actual live, beady-eyed, clucking, pecking, pooping fowls. And the smell!

The first evening wasn't so bad. The hens' water container was still full, and they had plenty of chicken scratch to find and eat. The fearful ones kept aloof, while the curious ones came over to check her out. Although some had tried to pluck at her hair, and a few explored her arms and legs with their beaks, most just gave her that one-eyed chicken-y stare and scratched around in the straw. With the onset of nighttime, the birds had all settled down, and the worst she'd had to endure was having a dozen hens snuggled up next to her like so many loaves of bread, sleeping with their heads scrunched down and their eyes closed, making occasional muttering sounds.

But when day dawned (or rather, when the lights came up as the ship's day cycle began), it was a different matter entirely. The chickens soon scratched out all the good things to eat, and her freckles and birthmarks began to attract much more unwanted attention. The 愚蠢 yúchǔn birds thought the marks were bugs, and found them irresistibly attractive. (Saffron was used to being considered attractive, but she had _no_ desire to be considered attractive because someone thought there were insects crawling over her skin.) Saffron discovered that the term "bird brain" was no exaggeration—to her very great dismay, as the same bird pecked at the same freckle over and over and over again, only to discover each time (and forget two seconds later) that it was _not _a delicious tick. The chickens became more aggressive in their search for food as the day wore on, pulling her hair, fluttering onto her shoulders, arms and legs, and pooping—pooping!—on her. It was intolerable. Luckily, when the water ran out, they began to wilt a bit, and were not quite so active. But by that time the straw bedding was completely filthy, and she discovered to her very great chagrin that the phrase "fouling your own nest" was not just an idle expression.

Saffron wasn't one to get angry with herself. But she did regret that she'd been fool enough to let that 傻瓜 shǎguā Inspector 代號 Dài Hào talk her into it. It was a mode of entry that was really beneath her. A goddess didn't arrive on the scene in a chicken crate. A chicken crate was _way _too _déclassé_. A goddess came down from the sky. _Dea ex machina._ She'd suggested the apple crate as a better mode of entry, but unfortunately the crate wasn't big enough. Too bad. It would've been more fitting. What begins with a crate of apples, will end with a Trojan horse. What begins with a crate of chickens…ends in fowl play. _Do not cluck with me…._She shook herself. The time in that ungodly hell of a chicken crate was really affecting her brain.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

狐狸精 húli jīng [fox spirit, idiom for "overly seductive woman"]

代號 Dài Hào [code name]

缺心少肺 quēxīnshǎofèi [brainless]

白目的 báimùde [moronic]

愚不可及 yúbùkějí [impossibly stupid]

愚蠢 yúchǔn [silly, stupid]

傻瓜 shǎguā [idiot]

代號 Dài Hào [code name]

_Dea ex machina [Goddess from the machine (Latin)]_

* * *

_A/N: So, what would you do? Disperse and go about your business, like the Captain ordered? Or would you stick around and watch Saffron make the Captain all flustered? Leave your comments here._


	13. Chapter 13

What Begins with an Apple, Part 7a

_Saffron messes with Mal. Saffron messes with Inara._

* * *

She _knew_ the Captain would be her first escort. All according to plan. She could play him as easily as a Companion plays a 揚琴yángqín. And speaking of Companions—with a surreptitious glance to make sure her audience was in place, Saffron let him lead her towards the dining room for the evening meal.

"You're quite a man, Malcolm Reynolds," she began, employing her most suggestive body language. "Most men, I have them doing my bidding inside of ten minutes."

"Don't count your chickens afore they're hatched, Saffron. The time for that is past, air through the engine. I ain't never doin' your bidding," he said dangerously.

"You've gotten the better of me more than once now, Mal. I told you the first time I met you: I've been waiting for someone good enough to take me down." She moved suggestively.

He recoiled. She could see the flush begin to climb up his neck towards his cheeks. And _she_ was watching. Good.

"Ain't interested in takin' you _down_, Saffron. And that kind a' flattery will get you nowhere. Just like to keep you boxed up, out of trouble."

"Why, what kind of trouble you think I might get into?" she asked suggestively.

The flush had risen right into his face and overspread his cheeks as he looked away, refusing to answer. _Good._

"Don't worry," she promised. "I'll be good. Very, very good. But when I'm _bad_—" she let her voice hit a sultry note "—I'm even _better_." She wiggled her hips slightly, and was delighted to see how he forced himself not to react. He was having difficulty. His face was shade of strawberry that nicely complimented his tightly controlled posture and constricted arm motions. She kept her delight carefully hidden.

"You'll be wantin' to hold that tongue of yours." He spoke stiffly.

"Where would you like me to hold it, 宝贝 bǎobèi? My tongue is at your service, 爱人 àiren." She spoke suggestively, and looked him up and down as she walked by his side, undressing him with her eyes as she looked into his flushed face and slowly brought her gaze down to rest on the front of his pants. Her peripheral vision showed her that her audience was still in place. Inara, her face set in a careful mask, was watching the entire journey from the catwalk near her shuttle, as they made their way from the passenger dorm, through the cargo bay, and up the stairs. Oh, and speaking of stiff…

She managed to move so as to brush his backside with her hand.

That broke him. He'd been doing his gorrammedest to ignore her flirtations, but his body had been responding despite his setting his will against it. He couldn't help his flushed face or the swelling in his trousers, and when she transformed her light brush into a gentle squeeze, he couldn't keep up the unbelievable act of non-responsiveness. He jumped away from her touch. "Keep your hands to yourself," he growled dangerously, "or I'll—"

"Oh, can you think of a better use for my hands?" she rejoined, reaching towards the front of his trousers.

"So help me, woman, I will do you a violence if you so much as—"

"You like to play rough, then?" she responded, her voice a sexy purr. "I like it rough."

"Keep walkin'."

. . .

It was simply beyond belief. No sooner had she begun to reconcile herself to the idea that Mal had betrayed her with his first mate, than who should appear but Mal's "wife" Saffron. Who was clearly eager to resume marital relations, ready to stroke his ego—and other parts. Inara felt renewed jealousy, watching this woman flirt outrageously with her—well, what was Mal, to her, anyway? Her boyfriend? Her ex-boyfriend? He was the man who asked her to marry him—and then betrayed her less than two weeks later. She didn't know what to think, but one thing was clear: Mal betraying her with Zoe was heartbreaking. Mal betraying her with the likes of Saffron was _intolerable_, and there was no way in hell that she would put up with it. It was a level of lowness to which she absolutely would not permit him to descend. She would confront him about it directly.

. . .

Inara declined to join the crew for dinner, which was perhaps just as well, since he had his hands full dealing with Saffron. Mal seated her as far away from himself as he could, sandwiched between Zoe and Jayne. He had asked them to bring their sidearms to the table—a most unusual situation. "Keep your hands on the table," he barked at Saffron, "in plain sight, at all times, throughout this meal. And don't go openin' your mouth, 'cept to put food in it." He set to eating his dinner, refusing to address another word to the evil snake. Unfortunately, that also meant that he barely addressed a word to anyone else, and the entire crew followed his cue. Dinner was a cheerless affair, and the crew hastened to finish and leave the table.

The journey back down to Saffron's room was nearly as bad as the journey to dinner. That gorram snake was usin' every wile in the book to get him flustered and sweaty. He wouldn't have nothin' to do with it, even ordered her to keep silent, but she turned everything he said and everything he didn't say into something to further her game. Clearly she had some kind of bodily witchcraft goin' on because despite his will and against all common sense he found himself—or parts of himself rather—responding to her shameless attempts at seduction. It was the like the first time she came aboard, when he'd found her in his bunk, all naked and articulate, and against all reason, against his better judgment, he'd kissed her and gone straight to the special hell of ship-in-deadly-peril.

At last he got the evil snake locked in her room, and with a sigh of relief he took a turn through the cargo bay to feed and water the gorram chickens. Then he climbed the stairs to the upper level. Where Inara awaited him.

"I should have expected this," Inara spat at him. She'd seen enough to infuriate her. Gone was that famous Companion control. Her emotions, at a near boil ever since she'd seen Mal kiss Zoe on the way to Beaumonde, needed only the slightest caloric input to erupt.

"Expected what?" Mal demanded.

She didn't answer his question, but raged on. "Faithless, weak-minded, 薄情 bóqíng, huāxīn, 外心 wàixīn—"

"I will not put up with this name-callin'," Mal interrupted. "I had my fill of it, this last week and more. I asked you a question. Shoulda expected what?"

"I should have expected you to succumb to that woman's charms."

"Succumb to what charms?" he exclaimed.

Inara rolled her eyes, and made a gesture, quite an unexpected one for a lady to make, clearly depicting what sort of charms she thought a man would find in Saffron.

"I expected that _Saffron_—" he spat out her name "—would take the first opportunity she could to try to make a fool of me, and sow discord, and—"

"That you would fall for it, revel in her attentions—"

"Revel in her—Inara, what the 地狱 dìyù are you talkin' about? Didn't you hear what I said to her?"

In fact, she hadn't heard. She'd read the body language. And Mal's body had clearly been saying that it wanted to be in bed with Saffron.

"I didn't need to hear," she replied. "I _saw_ you—your blushing confusion, stammering like a teenager on his first date, hoping to get lucky—"

"Like hell!" he exclaimed indignantly. "I ain't no teenager. And I ain't lucky. Ain't never been lucky," he added as an afterthought, "case you hadn't noticed."

"You know what I mean," Inara retorted, refusing to pity Mal's lucklessness. When she was this upset, she covered it with a caustic manner. "I saw how your body responded to her advances."

"Well, that's just—." He stopped, unable to deny the tightness in his trousers. "Inara, my body's an idiot."

"Agreed," she responded acidly.

"But _I_ ain't," he added in his own defense. "I don't think with my—you know. Stupid piece of meat wouldn't think twice about hookin' up with an evil snake like her. But _I_ would."

Inara's face expressed her complete lack of faith in him.

"Look, what you saw is Saffron tryin' to play me, and me not playin' along. You got a problem believin' me, then you come along next time, see for yourself."

"You mean, escort her with you?"

"That is exactly what I mean."

"Well, maybe I should do that, then!" she exclaimed hotly.

"Maybe you should!" he snapped back.

"I will!"

"Good!"

"Fine!"

"Hey!" Jayne exclaimed, coming upon them standing head to head like two fighting cocks, perched on the catwalk. "What is this? Some kinda rooster game? Don't you two got nothin' better to do?"

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

揚琴 yángqín [dulcimer]

宝贝 bǎobèi [sweetheart]

爱人 àiren [spouse, lover]

薄情 bóqíng [inconstant]

花心 huāxīn [fickle]

外心 wàixīn [unfaithful]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

* * *

_A/N: Saffron doesn't waste a moment. Express your opinions and leave a comment._


	14. Chapter 14

What Begins with an Apple, Part 7b

_Saffron messes with Zoe, and isn't that just playing with fire?_

* * *

Later, back in her shuttle, Inara felt she'd made herself a bit ridiculous. She knew perfectly well, at a rational level, that Saffron had some kind of Companion-like training, whether at a proper Companion Academy or not Inara couldn't say, although she'd be astonished if Saffron were a member of the Guild. Saffron had demonstrated before that she was masterful at playing her marks. Saffron was skilled, and she was playing Mal. In fact, if Mal hadn't already betrayed her with Zoe, she wouldn't have entertained the notion of him and Saffron for a second. But she didn't feel she could trust his denials—not anymore. He had demonstrated that he was not to be trusted. Even though her heart told her to trust his sincerity, she steeled herself to be strong. Giving in to her feelings was not going to help. She needed to determine if she could bear to do her job from Serenity, now that she and Mal were no longer together—and if not, she had to brace herself, leave Serenity, and find somewhere else to live out the rest of her days.

. . .

Zoe's knee was in no way fit for combat operations, but with the aid of the brace she was able to walk, and the rest of her felt fit enough for duty. Zoe had seen how spun about and exasperated Mal had been by that 疯子 fēngzi Saffron, so when the Captain suggested that she take the next turn at escorting the evil snake, she was not averse to it. Although at first she had been unable to resist having some fun at Mal's expense, Zoe was well aware of what a danger Saffron posed to the ship. Just let the 贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù try that 狗屎 gǒushǐ on _her_. She would not be played.

"Out," Zoe ordered, unlocking Saffron's door.

"Yes, ma'am," Saffron snapped to attention with a mock-salute.

"Cut the crap, and get moving," Zoe said.

Saffron obeyed. "You really are as tough as he said."

"I am."

Saffron was momentarily thrown off course. She had expected Zoe to ask what she meant. "Don't you want to know what he told me about you?" Saffron asked, trying a different angle.

"No."

"Aren't you the least bit curious? He told me a lot, when we were alone together."

Zoe was silent.

Saffron wasn't about to give up. "He was afraid of you. Afraid you would kill him." Saffron gave a frightened glance at Zoe, who did, in fact, look rather fierce. "I—I understand the feeling. I'm afraid, too," she said, timidly. She rubbed her mouth. "Afraid you'll hit me, like you did last time."

Zoe did not respond.

"He said you didn't respect him." Again with the silence from Zoe. "I could tell, I could see that you didn't respect him. I knew, when you refused to cook him dinner, and threatened never to have sex with him again if he asked you for food. What kind of woman refuses…food…to her husband?" Saffron asked, making it perfectly clear that by 'food' she meant something else entirely. Saffron paused to rub it in. "But maybe I'm being too judgmental. Perhaps it was only that you don't know how to _cook_."

Zoe was angry. That 贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù was pushing her buttons. She understood the insinuation, well enough. "Everyone assumes that because I didn't wait on my husband at table, that I wouldn't or couldn't cook. I'll have you know I'm a damn good cook, and my husband knew it plenty well." She glared at Saffron. Saffron quailed.

"Sorry. I just assumed…"

"Don't."

Saffron was quiet for a while. "Of course you can cook," she said at last. "It's just that you chose not to." She paused before adding, innocently, as if they had not just had a conversation where 'food' meant something else entirely, "Otherwise, why would he have leapt at the fresh 包 bāo I made for my husband?"

Zoe refused to dignify this little speech with a response.

"He told me I was a _master chef_, when we were alone together." Zoe gave Saffron a hard look. Saffron saw she was on the right tack, and continued. "We got right comfortable together. He told me all about flight school—how he left his home world to escape the polluted atmosphere, to see the stars. Told me he just wanted to see what the hell everyone was talking about."

This sounded too much like Wash himself for Zoe to ignore. Despite her determination not to listen to a word the 贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù said, she began to pay attention.

"He showed me the stars. Said they were his very first charts. Then he told me the myth about Earth-that-was." She paused, with a dramatic sigh that held hints of further reminiscences.

"The myth," prompted Zoe.

"He was quite a story-teller, that man was," Saffron remarked, as if Wash had told her hundreds of stories. "You'd like to hear what he said about the Myth of Earth-that-was? Okay. It was…kinda wacky, to tell the truth. In a kinky kind of way." She stopped abruptly, as if suddenly noticing Zoe's glare. "Right," she said, nervously. "The myth. Well, this land—Earth-that-was—when she was born, she had no sky. She was…oh, I'm not telling it right. He had a way…" She glanced at Zoe, with a nervous giggle. Zoe was glaring daggers. "Ah, now how did he say it? It was almost like poetry, and it was _so_ sexy. Ah, I remember. He said, 'She had no sky, she was open and inviting. The stars would rush into her, making the oceans boil with sensation,'" Saffron intoned in a voice reminiscent of Wash's. She paused for a moment then continued in her own voice. "It was at that point that I noticed how _hot _it had become on the bridge." She registered Zoe's concealed discomfiture, and went on. "Then he said, 'When she could endure no more ecstasy, she blew out the sky—'" She broke off, and looked Zoe in the eye. "At that point, I realized he wasn't sitting in the pilot's chair anymore. He was right next to me, with a—" she swallowed the word "—the size of the New Florida Peninsula. That's when he offered to show me the stars."

_Never, _Zoe thought. _Wash would never…_

"Oh, he did, hon," Saffron responded, as if she could read Zoe's mind. "Showed me the stars right there on the bridge."

"My man would never fall for your 该死的 屁話 gāisǐ de pìhuà," Zoe retorted.

"Oh, he brought _himself_ to his fall, sister. I didn't hardly have to move."

Zoe hauled off and slugged Saffron in the jaw, knocking her on her 屁股 pìgu. They had by now reached the dining room, where conversation stopped abruptly as everyone paused to look at Saffron decked out on the floor and Zoe breathing fire as sparks flew from her eyes.

"Get up," Zoe ordered. "Get your ass in the chair, and don't say another gorram word."

. . .

"I'm sorry, sir," Zoe told Mal after Saffron was securely locked back in her room. "But I'd best not be escorting that 他妈的 不要脸 说谎者 tāmādē bùyàoliǎn shuōhuǎngzhě again."

Mal looked at her questioningly.

"Made me so angry I was ready to end the 扯谎的 chěhuǎngde 贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù, right then and there, only it woulda spoiled everyone else's dinner."

Just recalling the event made Zoe's blood seethe, Mal could see. She was deadly serious, and in Zoe, that was scary. Saffron had surely damaged Zoe's calm something terrible. Had they been dealing with anybody but Saffron, Mal would have told Zoe to let the words roll off her back, and not let it bother her, but he had experienced for himself just how dangerously effective Saffron was at using words for her weapon. Zoe was vulnerable, from her loss of Wash, from the recent attack that left her limping, and doubly so with the baby on the way. He needed to protect Zoe. If he didn't, he would have a dysfunctional first officer and wounded friend.

"I have to escort her again, sir, I can't be answerable for the consequences," Zoe stated, looking him in the eye.

"Perhaps it's best then, if you just keep away from the evil snake. There's plenty of other work needs to be done on this boat." Mal didn't doubt that Zoe was ready to kill Saffron if provoked.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

疯子 fēngzi [madwoman]

贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù [cheap floozy]

狗屎 gǒushǐ [crap]

贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù [cheap floozy]

包 bāo [steamed buns, dumplings]

贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù [cheap floozy]

该死的 屁話 gāisǐ de pìhuà [damned nonsense]

屁股 pìgu [butt]

他妈的 不要脸 说谎者 tāmādē bùyàoliǎn shuōhuǎngzhě [gorram shameless liar]

扯谎的 chěhuǎngde [lying]

贱货 泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù [cheap floozy]

* * *

_A/N: Really, Inara! "She needed to determine if she could bear to do her job from Serenity, now that she and Mal were no longer together—and if not, she had to brace herself, leave Serenity, and find somewhere else to live out the rest of her days." A bit melodramatic there, aren't we, dear? Come on! What's wrong with you, Inara? What have you done with sensible, reasonable Inara, and who is this angry, maudlin being who has taken her place? Readers, share your thoughts—about Inara, about Saffron, about Zoe. I love to read your comments._


	15. Chapter 15

What Begins with an Apple, Part 8a

_Saffron messes with River, and vice versa. And how do you think that works out?_

* * *

It took a little doing, but Saffron was skilled, and with the aid of one of the tools she had retrieved from the bathroom and a length of microfilament, she was able to disengage the lock on her door and override the security alarm. She immediately headed for the cargo bay to plant her toys where they could do the most damage. So far, so good. No one was looking for her, and the cargo bay was silent. Good time to seed the cargo bay with her devices. The device she held in her hand was one of her favorite toys, and the opportunity to play with exciting new toys like these was one of the reasons she'd wanted to play this particular game. Of course, the personal element was also a strong motivator. She carefully positioned the device, and worked through the sequence of steps to activate it. Finished with the activation sequence, she straightened up.

"Gah!" She found herself face to face with a disconcerting stare. A downright creepy stare, come to think of it.

"Forget your toothpaste?" River asked, and slugged her, sending her sprawling onto the deck.

"Are you out of your mind?" Saffron asked in a fury, as she rubbed the side of her face. She was getting slugged in the jaw altogether too often on this particular mission. She was also astonished. Had this ninety-pound slip of a girl really just knocked her flat on her 屁股 pìgu?

"Completely," River answered, and looked it. "Have been for a good long while." She gave Saffron a creepy smile, which was even worse than the creepy stare, if such a thing were possible.

"What kind of game do you think you're playing?" Saffron sat up.

"What kind of game do you think _you're _playing?" River rebutted. Saffron made to stand up. "Uh-uh-uh!" River shook her finger at Saffron, who froze where she was. This girl was just too creepy.

"Love games," River chanted, dancing around the crates, right next to the spot where Saffron had concealed her device. She looked Saffron directly in the eye. "Good at them." Saffron pulled back from the intrusive gaze. "Wanna play Hide and Seek?" River asked playfully. She took a few steps away from Saffron to a spot near the forward staircase, bent over gracefully in a dancer's pose, and pulled out the device Saffron had just deployed. "Found it!"

"Hey!" Saffron exclaimed, in spite of herself.

"Looks like you left one of your toys here."

"That's not mine—" Saffron began, denying.

"Good," River interrupted. "Then it's _mine_."

"Wait, it _is_ mine. Give it back."

"Finders keepers."

"Give it back."

"Thought it wasn't yours." River smiled evilly at Saffron. "What's mine, is mine. What's yours, is mine," she chanted like a toddler, waving the device through the air. "If I want it, it's mine. If I see it, it's mine. If I don't see it, it's still mine. _Hand over that tool._" She held out her hand.

Saffron played dumb, pretending not to understand. The girl couldn't have seen the override tool. It was concealed in the folds of her clothing.

"Hand over the door security override," River snapped.

Saffron reluctantly handed it over, stewing and growling under her breath. She had a back-up plan, of course, but the loss of the override tool was going to cost her.

"Oooh, she's angry," River said, stopping her dance. "Angry that she wasn't invited to the wedding."

"What wedding?"

"Peleus and Thetis."

"I don't know them," Saffron said, brushing herself off.

"Looking for the Achilles heel," River continued. "Threw the golden apple in amongst the gods."

Saffron was puzzled. The girl really was out of her mind.

"What begins with an apple," River intoned, "must end with a horse."

Saffron froze and stared. _Does she know about the Trojan horse?_

"Polytekhnos and Aedon," River announced after careful consideration. "Loved more than Hera."

Okay, the girl really was just crazy. Saffron couldn't make head or tail of it. The girl was waiting for her to answer. "Haven't been to Hera," she said at last. "Not recently, anyway."

"Hera was wrathful," River announced. "Sent you to rack discord upon the lovers. Defeat, rape, nubile little slave girl. Chopped up the son." River paused to consider. "Chopped up the Sun?" she queried, then answered herself. "Chopped up the son."

"Chopped up the son?" Saffron echoed. She didn't understand a thing. This was just creepy. Not to mention disgusting.

"The gods were angry. Turned them all into birds. The seer Tiresias understood the language of the birds," she informed Saffron. River paused and reconsidered. "Bird seed. Chicken feed. Turned them all into chickens. Gorram chickens."

Saffron glanced over at the chicken crate where she'd concealed many of her toys. She said nothing.

"Time to go," River announced.

"Go where?" Saffron asked faintly.

"Start walkin'."

Saffron stood up. "Walking? Walking where?"

"Pick a direction. Just start walking."

It was at that point that Saffron noticed that the girl had a gun in her hand. Where had that come from? So, not only crazy, but also armed with lethal force? She started walking.

"It's just an object," River said, studying the gun in her hand uncertainly. She lifted her gaze to meet Saffron's eyes. "It doesn't mean what you think."

Saffron fled to her dorm room, and shut the door herself. She was glad to be safely locked away from the creepy crazy girl.

. . .

Saffron breathed a sigh of relief to be back in her prison. That girl…that _crazy_ girl was one of the fugitives that she'd seen aboard Serenity the first time she'd been there. River Tam and her brother Simon Tam, the doctor. It really was too bad she hadn't known they were fugitives then, because the reward for turning them in would have been far more than the pay-off for sending Serenity into the net. Still, it wasn't about the pay-off—it was never about the pay-off, it was how you played the game. She'd tried to capitalize on it later, when she sent Fergus and his boys after Simon Tam, offering to cut them in on the reward money. (It was a task she had delegated—because she was busy elsewhere and the crew of Serenity needed a _distraction_.) Ah yes, Fergus…her Beaumonde boyfriend. Had she married him? Oh. Right. Yes, he was one of the ones she'd married. Her husband. At least when it suited her. He wasn't the brightest candle in the box, but his physical attributes made him very attractive. As an _enforcer, _of course. He had the fight skills and the underworld contacts to make him very useful to her when she had that kind of work to do on Beaumonde. And life on Beaumonde sure had been busy of late.

Still, it was too bad that the opportunity had passed. The reward money for apprehending the Tam siblings was no longer on offer. (She had of course done her research before boarding Serenity.) Turned out, the arrest warrants that she had shown Fergus were now out of date, superceded by an official notice of rescindment. The Alliance was no longer after the Tams. She was sure someone, somewhere, would be glad to pay good money to get their hands on the pair of them, but without specific information, she was disinclined to act on spec. Especially since it seemed to involve getting slugged in the jaw and knocked on her 屁股 pìgu far more often than was tolerable for an operator of her caliber.

. . .

"Doesn't play well with others."

River could tell that the Captain had correctly surmised that she was talking about Saffron, but he stared at the device that River proffered, as if utterly perplexed.

"What _is_ that thing, River?"

"She wasn't invited to the wedding. Got angry. Brought her toys, wouldn't play nice. Wouldn't share." She wasn't answering his question, but it was important. Important to say…she couldn't find quite the right expression.

"What wedding are you talkin' about, Albatross?" he asked, eyeing the device in her hand curiously.

"Peleus and Thetis," River proclaimed confidently, on surer ground. Sometimes the Captain understood that he needed to ask the questions. Too many meanings swirling in her brain, too many feelings, too many stories. The strands got tangled, the meanings obscured. Hard to sort them out, find the pattern. Can't find the clear path through the woods. The trees. The orchard. The grove. They grew in Hera's garden in the west. Hesperides. Something about the garden…

"Who're they? Don't think I know 'em. These folks have a wedding recently?"

"A _long_ time ago." The_ apple_. That was it. The _apple_ was important. "She gave an apple. Launched a thousand ships. The Achaeans—"

"What _is_ that thing?" the Captain interrupted, referring to the toy she held in her hand.

"Toy." Something was missing. She tried again. "Troy."

He gave the thing a cursory examination. "Looks a bit like a fuse filament to me. Wonder if it's the programmable kind." He spoke into the comm, "Kaylee, you available? Come on up to the bridge. Got something for you to check out."

"So, where'd you get that thing?" the Captain asked.

"Oh!" River was startled to find a fuse filament in her hand. Where had it come from? "Found it." As she gazed out the bridge window into the Black, she spotted their destination, Beaumonde's Trojan planet Hektor, in the night sky. _Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles Peleus' son, the ruinous wrath that brought on the Achaeans woes innumerable, and hurled down into Hades many strong souls of heroes, and gave their bodies to be a prey to dogs and all winged fowls_.

"Found it where?" The Captain's voice commanded her attention again.

"Cargo bay." Oh, right, that's what she wanted to tell him. "_She_ put it there."

"Who? Saffron?" He looked at her sharply. "You tellin' me that evil snake was in the cargo bay?"

River nodded.

"他妈的 Tāmādē. How'd she get out of her room?" He exited the bridge, pulling River along.

River knew the answer to that question. She pulled the door security override tool out of her pocket.

"Where'd you get that?" the Captain asked sharply.

"Took it from her."

"他妈的 Tāmādē. Kaylee," Mal asked, turning to the mechanic as she entered the corridor on her way towards the bridge, "is this what I think it is?" He indicated the tool in River's outstretched hand.

"Standard door security override tool," Kaylee affirmed.

"他妈的 Tāmādē."

The Captain was really stuck in a rut of uncreative cussing, River thought. At least his epithet for referring to Saffron—_that evil snake—_was a little more poetic. "More colorful language—"

"You recognize this thing at all?" He held out the first device River had showed him.

Kaylee took the thin strip of filament. "Don't rightly know what this is, Cap'n. Looks like it might be programmable, though. Could be set up for a variety of functions."

_It's a—_the word evaded her. She couldn't think of it. She tried paraphrasing. Maybe it would come to her. "_Sing, goddess, the wrath of Peleus' son, the ruinous wrath that brought down woes innumerable, and hurled down into Hades the souls of heroes, and gave their bodies to be a prey to all winged fowls_." Began with winged fowls. Ended with a horse._ Sing, goddess._

_"And gave her a…  
_Lecture on horses, and chickens, and eggs,  
And told her that she had such beautiful…  
Manners—"

"Hold off on the singin' a moment, willya, River?" He didn't want to take the effort to sort out what the crazy girl was saying. Turned to his 妹妹 mèimei, since she would answer in language he could understand. Comprehend. Apprehend. Get. "Apparently, it's something Saffron planted in the cargo bay." He turned back to River. "You think she went anywhere else, or just the cargo bay?"

Frustration. "How would I know?" she exclaimed. "Not omniscient. _Δεν είμαι θεά (Den eímai theá)._ Of discord or otherwise."

The Captain stared and shook his head slightly, exchanging a look with the mechanic. _I'm _not_ crazy,_ River thought. _Just can't find the words._ "The words won't come."

"Well, darlin', while you're thinkin' on those words, how's about we keep moving on down to the cargo bay and you show me just where you found this gorram thing? Disturbs me to no end to know that evil snake got outta her room. Where'd she get ahold of a security override tool?"

"Chickens," River answered promptly. The Captain ignored her. "Chickens," she insisted, more forcefully.

"What about chickens, darlin'?" he queried, good-humoredly.

"Chickens!" River exclaimed. He wasn't getting it.

"River, honey, calm down," Kaylee said soothingly.

"A companion's words of persuasion are effective," River quoted, again from _The Iliad._ River rolled her eyes at the blank looks directed her way by both the Captain and Kaylee. Whatever happened to a classical education? "The classics…" she began, but her attention was distracted as they entered the cargo bay on the upper catwalk.

"Now whereabouts was this filament thing?" Mal asked River. "Can you show me the exact spot?"

River nodded, and danced down the stairs. She skipped between the rows of crates and pinpointed the spot by the forward stairs, right next to the cargo bay door controls. Mal and Kaylee stared assessingly at the area.

"What do you reckon this device is for?"

"Not rightly sure, Cap'n," Kaylee answered. "Thing like that, could have any purpose from tracking the location of a crate to starting a fire. It's thin enough it could easily be overlooked, or mistook for a patch or label."

"I wonder…" Mal began, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully, "why did she choose _this_ spot in particular, out of all the whole cargo bay?" Kaylee was bent down, shining a light onto the spot in which the device had been adhered, examining the surface, looking for connections.

River almost had the answer, she knew it was in there, in the swirling miasma, but it eluded her grasp, eddied away before she could acquire it. She swiveled her head over toward the chicken crates. "Chickens hold the answer."

Mal eyed her warily. With her neck sticking out strangely, River walked over to the crate, flapped her arms, and bent over, eyeing the chickens within through the narrow gaps in the boards. "Don't think the chickens got a gorram clue as to Saffron's motivations or methods, sweetheart. Chickens ain't very smart."

Kaylee caught the Captain's eye, and shook her head slightly.

"Am not," River shot at them.

"Not what?" Kaylee asked, trying to look all innocent-like.

"Not _cracked._" River looked the chicken crate over. Something…something about the crate, the chickens. "Why did the chicken cross the 'Verse?"

"To get to the other…" Kaylee answered readily, trailing off as the Captain glared at her. He thought she was being distracted.

"Kaylee, you got any notions as to why or what for—"

River interrupted. "Which came first, the chicken or the—"

"Listen, this is very amusing, Albatross, very philosophical. But it ain't on topic. Some of us are still tryin' to figure out what sort of trick Saffron's tryin' to pull here, and all this talk of chickens and eggs ain't helpin'.

"—the chicken or the apple," River finished, then frowned, unhappy with how that came out.

The Captain gave her a sharp look, then hit the comm button on the wall. "Zoe, need you and Jayne down in the passenger dorm. Gonna search Saffron's room for contraband."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

屁股 pìgu [butt]

他妈的 Tāmādē [Damn it]

妹妹 mèimei [younger sister]

Δεν είμαι θεά (Den eímai theá) [I am not a goddess (Greek)]

* * *

_A/N: I'd like to read your thoughts on Saffron's first encounter with River. :-)_


	16. Chapter 16

What Begins with an Apple, Part 8b

_Jayne feeds the chickens._

_A/N: It turns out that there are a large number of expressions in Chinese involving the word for egg, 蛋 dàn. I was unable to resist the opportunity to indulge in a huge number of bilingual puns. In short, I was a 糊涂蛋 hútú dàn [sucker (literally, a "confused egg")] for egg puns. As usual, translations are in the glossary below. Also, thanks again to my friend Julie for sharing her chicken-y knowledge._

**Pun warning for this chapter.**

* * *

"So why'd you stow away on my boat, Yo-Saff-Bridge?"

She didn't answer.

"Who put you in the chicken crate?"

She gave a silent snort.

"Where'd you get that door override?"

His question was met with silence.

"What was the fuse filament device for?"

Saffron pouted at him.

"Where'd you put the other ones?"

She rolled her eyes.

Well, _that_, at least, was a bit of information. There _were_ other ones, she just wasn't sayin' where or how many. But it wasn't very helpful. It just confirmed his suspicions. He and Zoe searched Saffron's room to no effect, while Jayne and River held her at bay in the corridor outside. Jayne stood there with his best intimidating look, his hand hovering near his gun, while River put on an extraordinary performance, miming chicken antics. Between the two of them, they kept Saffron silent and motionless in a corner.

Mal was left with a raft of unanswered questions. How long was Saffron in the cargo bay before she was discovered? Was she there just to plant the device that River found, or did she do something else? Did she plant other devices, and if so, where? Was she inspecting the cargo looking for the secret information Buck Holden had hidden in it? Even Mal didn't know where _that_ was hidden, but if Saffron knew enough to look for it, then that opened the door on a whole new series of questions.

So far, Saffron had succeeded in embarrassing him in front of Inara, provoking Zoe to a murderous rage, escaping from her room, and stimulating River to embark upon a round of incomprehensible chicken-inspired lunacy. And still he was no closer to having an answer to the fundamental questions: why was Saffron on his boat, and what was she up to?

"Where are you bound?" Saffron's voice suddenly demanded—just as if she were the one with the right to question _him_, after stowing away on his own gorram boat.

"Why do you ask?" he countered.

"You left Beaumonde in a tearing hurry," she rejoined with a hint of a sneer. "Just wondering if you actually know where you're going."

Well now. Seemed like provoking Saffron into a snarky mood might actually yield some information. If Saffron had placed herself in that crate deliberately, he couldn't imagine that she didn't know where it was supposed to be delivered. He made a mental note to issue a direct order that no one divulge any information to Saffron about their course, to Hektor or beyond. "Well, how's about _you_ tell _me_ where we're goin'?" he replied.

Saffron stared back at him defiantly. She was a good actress, but he was watching her closely and saw that she realized she had slipped.

"How did you get in that crate?" he repeated. "Your choice?"

"No, of course I didn't _choose_ to be cooped up with those foul beasts for a day and a half!" she exclaimed. "No one in their right mind would."

"Never said you were in your right mind."

She gave him a foul look, but wouldn't say another word.

With Saffron safely locked up again in her room, Zoe returned to the bridge to resume her trick at the helm, River flapped about the passenger lounge imitating a chicken, and Jayne headed into the cargo bay to tend to the chickens. Mal followed him.

. . .

Mal had been astonished by Jayne's initial enthusiasm for taking on the duty of fowl manager. The chickens needed to be fed and watered frequently, and the straw bedding in the two crates had to be changed daily, or they'd start to smell. After all of Jayne's moaning and groaning about tending the cattle during the run to Beylix, Mal really hadn't expected that the man would give him anything but the barest cooperation, and that grudgingly. But Jayne had more than cooperated, he had jumped at the job.

At first Mal didn't question it, just accepted it and figured if Jayne was gonna make it go easy this time, he wasn't gonna argue. But by the second day, he began to get the sense that Jayne was no longer satisfied with his new job as Serenity's official chicken-wrangler.

"Gorram good-for-nothin' 蠢蛋 chǔn dàn chickens!"

It wasn't possible to avoid overhearing Jayne's curses as he stood in the opened chicken crate, tossing the fouled bedding into a nearby bin.

"What kind of 无用 wúyòng chicken can't lay a gorram egg?" he muttered.

"Problem with the chickens, Jayne?" Mal inquired, strolling over crate-side.

"I'll say there is, Mal," Jayne replied with a disgusted grumble. "Gorram chickens ain't good for nothin'."

Mal peered into the open crate. Jayne's mucking-out process had certainly stirred things up. The excited chickens were strutting about and enthusiastically pecking at the real and imagined specks turned up by Jayne's removal of the foul straw. "Far as I can tell, they look to be ordinary chickens," Mal shrugged, "sure as eggs is eggs."

"Well, ain't that just the gorram problem!" Jayne exclaimed in a completely exasperated tone of voice.

"That they're chickens?" Mal responded, uncertain exactly why chickens acting like chickens was a problem. After all, they _were_ chickens.

Jayne gave him a glare that he couldn't quite interpret, although he got this message as loud and clear as a rooster crowin' in the mornin': Jayne's foul mood was like to boil over soon.

"Don't play 呆若木鸡 dāiruòmùjī with me, Mal," Jayne growled. "Don't you come tellin' me some know-it-all farm-boy 屎蛋 shǐ dàn about how all these chickens is really roosters. Or heifer-chickens."

_Heifer-chickens? _Didn't take Mal long to cotton on to Jayne's meaning. He remembered Jayne's disgust at discovering that none of the cattle in the herd they'd transported to Beylix was capable of producing fresh milk, seeing as they were all heifers and steers. And now Jayne was—

"Ain't no 笨蛋 bèndàn," Jayne continued, with unintentional humor. "Even _I _can tell these ain't no gorram roosters. They're _hens_, Mal. _Hens._" Jayne folded his arms, as if his statement settled the matter, and glared at the Captain.

Mal had trouble reining in his smile. He couldn't help egging him on. "Why, Jayne, you look just as disgusted as if you smelled a rotten egg—" he began.

"Gorrammit, Mal! _No_. Not no kind of egg, not good, bad, nor rotten. These gorram chickens are 废物 fèi wù. I been cleaning these crates since yesterday morning, and ain't none of these hens laid a single egg. Not a gorram one."

"滚蛋 Gǔndàn!" Mal exclaimed, straight-faced.

"Damn straight, Mal. What kind of no-good 捣蛋的 dǎodànde hen is it can't lay no eggs? I was countin' on these birds to gimme eggs for breakfast, and they ain't providin'!"

"And you can't make an omelet without breakin' eggs," Mal quipped, unable to resist.

Jayne glared. "I ain't no 糊涂蛋 hútú dàn, Mal," he replied, as Mal bit his cheeks to keep from bursting out laughing. "These chickens are _hens_. Oughtta lay eggs."

"So, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, is it?" Mal inquired provokingly.

"Gorrammit, Mal!"

"He that would have eggs must endure the cacklin' of hens, Jayne," he quoted, as Jayne cursed ineffectively at him. "Chickens in transit don't nest. Too nervous."

Jayne pulled up short in his cussing. "They don't?"

"Nope."

"Well. Then I quit."

"Quit?"

"Don't want this job no more. The chicken-tending, I mean," Jayne added as Mal's glare made him back-pedal slightly.

"You mean to tell me you can't take it no more, just 'cause these hens ain't givin' you free eggs for breakfast?" Mal demanded, letting Jayne feel the full force of 'The Look.' "What are you, chicken-hearted? Well, I ain't gonna let you chicken out! I ain't no spring chicken, but I'll make you run around like a chicken with its head cut off!"

"Gorrammit, Mal!" Jayne exclaimed, finally getting over the paralysis that the Captain's 'Look' always put him in. Mal was just playin' some kind a' rooster game with him, tryin' to establish the pecking order. Well, he weren't gonna brood over it. He could give as good as he got. "I ain't the one laid an egg here." He was on a roll—_an egg roll, _he thought to himself with a smirk—as another one occurred to him. "I'm a good egg."

"Don't over-egg the pudding," Mal warned.

"Oh, go fry an egg!"

"You're just eggin' me on," the Captain replied with an obnoxious smirk.

Jayne gestured with his fist. "I'll give you a goose egg, you don't cut that out."

"Goose that laid the golden egg? I'll take it…"

River paused, mid-peck, as she overheard the Captain and Jayne going at it with the chicken and egg humor in the cargo bay. _Aha!_ _Key to the city. Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. _The Captain was now examining the chicken crates, looking for evidence of hidden contraband, and coming up with a big goose egg. She overheard Jayne saying, "I dunno what you think you're gonna find in there, Mal. I done told you, they ain't laid a single egg." River shook her head. _Sometimes,_ she reflected,_ it's necessary to teach fish to swim._

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

蠢蛋 chǔn dàn [fool, lit. "sluggish egg"]

无用 wúyòng [useless]

呆若木鸡 dāiruòmùjī ["dumb as a wooden chicken" (idiomatic expression for "dumbstruck")]

屎蛋 shǐ dàn [crap (lit. "shit egg," turd)]

笨蛋 bèndàn [dummy, fool (lit. "dumb egg")]

废物 fèi wù [good for nothing]

滚蛋 Gǔndàn [Get out of sight! (lit. "boil an egg")]

捣蛋的 dǎodànde [trouble-making (lit."falling egg")]

糊涂蛋 hútú dàn [confused/clueless person (a sucker) ( lit. "confused egg")]

* * *

_Did this chapter make you exclaim, "滚蛋 Gǔndàn!" or did it just make you shake your head and think, "ebfiddler is a 笨蛋 bèndàn" ? Share your thoughts. Extra points for using chicken and egg words in your review. ;-)_


	17. Chapter 17

What Begins with an Apple, Part 9a

_Matters of the heart._

A/N: I want to thank Bytemite for very helpful discussions of the Mal/Inara/Saffron scene in this chapter.

* * *

It didn't start off so well. Simon found a quiet moment, when they were alone together and unlikely to be disturbed. But he'd barely started before things took a downward turn that seemed likely to spiral out of control.

"You told the Cap'n I'm pregnant, didn't you?"

"Kaylee, I told you I had to…"

"And he threatened to space you if ya didn't marry me, is that it?"

"He didn't threaten to space me, he—"

"Simon, I'm not interested in gettin' married just 'cause the Cap'n's got some 稀奇古怪 xīqígǔguài notion that it's your duty to ask me. That ain't a good enough reason."

"And having a baby on the way isn't a good enough reason, Kaylee? I thought you were pleased about the baby?"

"I _am_ pleased about the baby, Simon. But I ain't gonna marry you just 'cause the Cap'n's threatened to tar and feather you if'n you don't."

"That's not the case, Kaylee. The Captain's threats have nothing to do with—"

"So he did threaten you."

"Actually, he didn't. He simply paid me the wages I was owed, so that I could buy a ring."

Despite her anger, Kaylee melted. "A ring! Simon, you didn't need to take that kind of trouble. Must have cost a—"

Simon smiled, and breathed a little easier. Maybe this wouldn't end in disaster, after all. He pulled the little box out of his pocket and held it behind his back. He prepared to kneel down in front of her. "I wanted to buy a ring. I wanted to do this properly, Kaylee. I've been waiting—"

To his surprise, she cut him off, all angry again. "Properly! Always with the proper. And I ain't gonna marry you 'cause of some confounded notion you got that it's the proper thing to do, like it's some gorram duty."

"That's not—! Kaylee, I—that's—" Simon was completely nonplussed, and tried to gather his wits about him. He knew he was no good at talking to girls, but he'd thought he was doing better with Kaylee since Miranda. But tonight it seemed he was unable to open his mouth without Kaylee taking it the wrong way. This was _not_ the way he imagined the marriage proposal going. "This is definitely not something I'm doing as an act of duty!"

"Then why don't ya give me some better reasons than what I've heard so far?" Kaylee demanded, her eyes flashing.

"I'm asking because—I love you, and—" Kaylee's eyes softened, and Simon's hope renewed "…and—don't take this the wrong way—you really are, literally, the only girl in the world—"

"That's a hell of a thing to say!"

"Let me finish, Kaylee! You're the only girl in the world, in my world—the only girl I want or need. You _are _my world. And without you, my world is incomplete and lacking. I've been waiting for the chance to say this to you, Kaylee. I don't have the fancy phrases that other lovers might use; I tend to say the wrong thing. In fact, I was considering whether it might not be better for me to just give up on saying it in my own words, and just quote Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe—you know, the one that goes, 'Come live with me and be my Love'—but I wanted to try to say it myself. I'm sorry I'm such an idiot about expressing my feelings." He paused, and noticed that Kaylee was no longer objecting, no longer angry. She was looking at him with that melty, loving look that he'd seen in his dreams when he'd imagined this moment. "I love you, Kaylee. More than I can express. I want to live my life with you. I want to share in your joys and sorrows, I want to see our child growing in you, and raise a family with you. I want to grow old with you, loving you all the while." He knelt on one knee before her and presented her with the ring. "Will you do me the honor of marrying me?"

The rest of their evening went _much_ better.

. . .

Their passion was disrupted by obnoxious arrhythmic taps sounding through the wall by Simon's head. It was the sound of Mal banging on the bulkhead between the bunks. _混蛋__Húndàn__._ Simon knew it was just the Captain's frustration speaking. But it wasn't his and Kaylee's fault that the man had quarreled with Inara. Mal got _himself_ kicked out of Inara's bed. If he couldn't keep his foot out of his mouth long enough to…Simon stopped himself from pursuing this uncharitable line of thought. He was one to talk. Had Kaylee not been the sunniest woman in the 'Verse, he would not be where he was now, lying in the arms of the woman he loved, the woman who, despite all the times he'd put his foot in his mouth, had just agreed to marry him and become his wife.

. . .

When Mal and Inara showed up together to escort her, Saffron looked delighted to see them. That alone was enough to put Mal on his guard. Saffron was gonna try to play them—that he knew sure as the spinning of worlds. What he didn't know was what line she was gonna take. So why did she look like a thespian looking out on the theatre and seeing her desired audience occupying every seat in the house?

"So pleasant to see you, my dear," Saffron greeted Inara, with honey-coated barbed wire in her voice.

"I'd like to say the same," Inara responded with a veneer of civility.

"I understand you've been sleeping with my husband," Saffron said bluntly.

"I ain't your—" Mal protested, but he shut up when Inara trod on his foot.

_I'll handle this_, she told him with her look, and he understood. Just as easily as with Zoe. _Huh_. That gave him something to think on.

"If I remember correctly, you informed me that you were a widow," Inara replied coolly.

"I thought I was, thank you for your sympathy," Saffron responded with an artificial smile. "I was, however, misinformed. My husband is yet alive and well." She cast an appraising look at Mal, skimming his body with her eyes, and bringing them to rest on the front of his trousers. "Resurrection of the flesh and all, you know."

Mal began to hem and shift uncomfortably. He didn't enjoy being appraised like he was a piece of meat. Inara didn't miss a beat.

"Resurrection of the flesh? Somehow I hadn't put you down as the religious type," Inara responded sweetly.

"Oh, well, you would know more about resurrection of the flesh than I, my dear. Considering that it's in your line of work."

Mal grew more uncomfortable, but held his tongue. Uncomfortable, yes. But part of him was curious. He'd always wondered what Inara had to say about her work, but it wasn't the kind of thing he ever wanted to ask.

"It certainly is," Inara responded boldly. "I have an advanced degree in Architectural Sexual Mechanics."

_Architectural what?! _ Mal nearly blurted it aloud. He didn't understand what the 地狱 dìyù was going on between the two women. It was the opening moves of some kind of verbal fencing match, that much he could tell. He just didn't see where they were aiming. Still, Inara talking about sex _was_ kinda hot.

Inara favored him with a brief look—he was unsure how to interpret it—before addressing her response to Saffron.

"Architecture. Design and construction. As in, building erection."

_Am I even here? _ Mal thought, ready to sink into the floor. No, he was _not_ comfortable with conversations about sex. On the other hand, yes, it was _definitely _hot.

"Oh! I had quite forgotten. You've been to the Academy." Saffron smiled back at her. "Graduated at the top of your class, I daresay."

"As a matter of fact I did," Inara responded coldly.

"Then perhaps you can help me understand something."

"I daresay there is a lot I could tell you. Not that you could understand. You're welcome to try."

"You're truly a Registered Companion?"

"I am," Inara answered, with a _what-of-it?_ air.

"Companion First Class?"

"Yes. And if you're intending to solicit my recommendation for entering the Academy, I feel obliged to inform you that you are at least three decades too late," Inara replied, deliberately grossly overestimating Saffron's age.

"Oh, la! No, indeed. I have no aspirations to become a _professional._" Saffron's emphasis of the word clearly implied insult, more clearly than Mal's use of the word 'whore' ever had. Mal shifted his stance and clenched his fist, ready to intervene if necessary.

"No," Saffron continued, "I'm just seeking information. To clarify. I haven't the kind of experience you have, as a _professional_." She paused, as if to access a mental checklist of questions. "I have heard—" She continued to address herself to Inara, but as she proceeded, she began flicking glances at Mal's body, raking him up and down with her eyes. "—Well, what I really want to know is, is it true that to pleasure a man, one can—" Saffron proceeded to give a description that caused Mal's ears to turn a furious shade of red. Forget being ready to sink into the floor before. Now he _was_ sinking into the floor, and he wished he couldn't see nor hear neither. She used no vulgar language, no improper terms for body parts, but what she was describing was so graphically salacious that it made Mal wish he were anywhere else but here. Just hearing that woman talk about the process she was describing made him feel violated. He couldn't imagine what sort of answer anyone could possibly give to the question Saffron was asking.

"You have been misinformed," Inara answered professorially, as if Saffron had merely asked if "swinging from the shoulder like you're chopping wood" was an effective fencing technique. She then proceeded to explain, in precise, technical terms, exactly where the fallacious reasoning lay in Saffron's description, and how to correct it.

To tell the truth, Mal had been somewhat fascinated by the beginning of the discussion—fascinated, even a bit intrigued. Inara revealing the secrets of Companioning, Inara talking about sex—yeah, he was definitely interested. Hell, yes. But as the talk continued, she started going into clinical details ("psychogenic arousal" — "insertion of the intromittent organ" — "stimulation of the Meissner corpuscles" — "involuntary parasympathetic reflexes" — "the nucleus accumbens, a pleasure center of the brain") and his reaction began to shift. From thinking it was kinda hot, to thinking _What. The. Hell._ He knew—_of_ _course_ he knew—that Inara had some pretty specific professional training in matters having to do with sex—but—he'd thought, somehow he'd believed, that it was different for the two of them. "With a little practice, it's relatively easy to induce a heightened response in the typical male," Inara was saying. "Men aren't exactly a mystery. Using the appropriate techniques…"

_Oh god, I can't know that!_ he thought, as Inara described one particular technique in great detail, using scientifically precise but nonetheless graphic terms. "You can gauge the response by noting the dilation of the pupils…" Had she done that to _him_? Was that all that their love-making had been? He had a moment of horrified realization—Inara _had_ done something like that—and she'd pleasured him nearly out of his mind. He'd gone to the bridge _whistling_ the next morning, because he'd never felt so gorram good. Was that just Inara and her fancy education, putting him through his paces, working him over like any—? He'd been ridiculous, to think it meant something more—to imagine that it was "deeply meaningful" and all that love-sick 屁話 pìhuà. Here he'd been believing the act of consummation was the physical expression of true love, while to her it was nothin' but a skillful performance of the sexual mechanics she'd studied in her Clinical Analysis of Human Sexuality class at Companion Academy. He'd been a complete and utter fool to think he'd succeeded in loving the real Inara, when the whole time it was just Companion Inara successfully applying her techniques on him. Plying her trade. Manipulating him, controlling his reactions, _playing _him, just like any client. Mal was indescribably pained.

"…simply a matter of appropriate physical stimulation of the sensory neurons that participate in that reflex arc," Inara concluded. "And that's the end of my lecture. If you want more information than that, you'll need to enroll in my classes. Read my brochure on the cortex."

Saffron bowed her head, as if to acknowledge her defeat. Inara allowed herself the slightest smile of triumph. It had been a challenge, to avoid Saffron's attempts to draw her out about her experiences with clients, made in order to rouse Mal to jealousy and anger. She'd purposely kept everything she said clinical and impersonal, eventually hitting her stride and sounding awfully like Professor Nansi, whose Academy lectures on sensory neurons, neurotransmitters, biochemical feedback loops, and brain anatomy were remarkable in Inara's memory primarily for their ability to take an act of sublime emotional beauty and reduce it to a list of dry facts. She defied even Mal to find anything to be jealous over in her professorial dissertation. She risked a glance at him and noticed for the first time that he looked physically ill. As if he'd been struck through the heart and just hadn't yet managed to fall down dead.

"Mal!" she exclaimed in concern, reaching out to him. "Are you—?"

"Go away," he said in a choked voice, cringing away from her touch. "Leave me alone."

Saffron strode triumphantly ahead of Inara into the dining room.

. . .

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.

.

glossary

稀奇古怪 xīqígǔguài [fantastic, strange]

_混蛋 __Húndàn [Bastard]_

地狱 dìyù [hell]

屁話 pìhuà [nonsense]

* * *

_A/N: One step forward, two steps back. How about that proposal? Share your thoughts and speculations about Simon and Kaylee, Mal and Inara, and Saffron._


	18. Chapter 18

What Begins with an Apple, Part 9b

_Mal and Inara finally talk to each other. Well, sort of._

* * *

She had no choice but to enter the dining room, but it wasn't alright. _He_ wasn't alright. In fact, he looked positively stricken. She'd tried to tell him—to let him know with a meaningful look—that he was not to take to heart what she was saying to Saffron. Her words were for _Saffron's_ benefit. He was not to take it personally. It had no bearing on _him_, or _her_, or their past relationship. She was playing Saffron. He had to know that, understand that. Surely he would understand that.

But apparently he didn't. The non-verbal communication hadn't translated to him. She wondered now why she had expected it. Certainly their _verbal_ communication hadn't been at all successful lately. Why had she assumed he would understand?

She got away from the dinner table as quickly as she could, and sought him out. He was cut off from his usual places of retreat—the bridge and his bunk—by the crowd in the dining room. She found him in the engine room, caressing Serenity's workings unthinkingly, heart to heart with his ship.

"Mal." She spoke softly from the doorway.

"Asked you to leave me alone, Inara."

She hesitated. "You did," she acknowledged, "but I thought I could—"

"Don't," he cut her off, retreating as she advanced into the room.

She stopped moving towards him, took a deep breath, and took a deliberate step back. She was not going to take the undignified course of pursuing the Captain and cornering him in his own engine room.

"I'm sorry, Mal."

His eyes flashed. "Sorry for what?" he demanded. "Sorry for me and my pathetic feelings?—"

"Mal—"

"—Sorry I heard your secret techniques? Sorry to enlighten me on how your Companion wiles work?—"

"Mal, please—"

"—Sorry I know how you play your clients?—"

"Mal!"

"—Sorry I know it don't mean a damn thing?!"

"Mal. Please. I'm sorry you had to hear that. It was unseemly. It was my mistake—"

"Just as unseemly if I hadn't heard it. Better if I—"

She cut him off this time. "My mistake, Mal, was that I didn't realize until too late that Saffron _wanted_ me to play her. That she was using me to play _you._ I'm sorry. I never meant to cause you pain."

"That's rich," he commented, in an audible undertone.

"It's true. I have no desire to cause you further pain." She was a long way from forgiving him for his infidelity with Zoe, and she wasn't about to take back the names she had called him last week—_faithless, weak-minded, __薄情__bóqíng, __花心__huāxīn__,_and _外心__wàixīn_. They still applied, and those were just the beginning of the list: he richly deserved it, and had earned it through his own actions. But still, she had no malice in her heart. He had coaxed her out of her Companion's armor, induced her to share her heart with him, and then abused the privilege. But paying him back in heart-pain was ungracious, unmerciful, unethical, and beneath her dignity.

"Really?" he sneered. "Could've fooled me. _Did_ fool me," he added in a mutter.

Inara was struck by an insight. "Surely you don't think that what I said to Saffron constitutes my philosophy of love-making?"

"Philosophy of love-making!" he echoed. What she was saying certainly wasn't doing anything to calm him down. "Sensory neurons and brain parts and spinal cord reflexes—is that all love-making is to you?" he suddenly demanded. "Thought I was making love to a _woman_—but it seems it ain't never been nothin' but a matter of releasin' neurotransmitters, and—and—activatin' biochemical feedback loops!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Mal—"

"I _am_ bein' ridiculous, I know it—"

"—You can't have an orgasm over biochemical feedback loops. Well, _I _can't, anyway—"

"—I _been_ ridiculous, this whole time—"

"—My approach to sex is _not_ clinical—I would have thought you understood—"

"—such a fool, to believe—"

"I studied those subjects at the Academy. Those studies help shape me, but that doesn't mean that they constitute my philosophy—"

"Listen, Inara," he interrupted angrily. "I don't know what-all they taught you at Whore Academy—I don't wanna know. But I got my _own_ philosophy when it comes to love-making. It ain't just sex. It's expressing with your body the love your soul feels for another. It's giving reverence to your loved one, showin' in a physical way the love you feel in your heart. Ever heard of them old wedding vows? _ 'With my body I thee worship.'_ That's how I feel about it. Like it's something holy."

Inara was moved by the heartfelt emotion in his words. Was this the same man who had cheated on her with Zoe? The man who felt the act of love-making was holy, the physical expression of heart and soul, just didn't seem like the type who could carry on a secret affair on the side. She couldn't reconcile the two pictures. It just didn't make sense; it wasn't reasonable.

Mal wasn't done speaking. "It's not something I could take lightly," he continued, and his voice began to rise with a charge of emotion. "And the thinkin' that it could be reduced to stimulatin' neurons and activating feedback loops just—"

"Knowing how it happens doesn't deprive it of meaning," Inara interrupted in her own defense. "Understanding the mechanisms doesn't make it a mechanical act. I believe the knowledge of the underlying structure adds meaning, and makes it all the more beautiful."

"Makes it a routine."

"No, it makes it more real," she countered reasonably, "and all the more wondrous that the same set of physical motions can result in such vastly different experiences. What we had together—"

"Spare me, Inara," he interrupted harshly. "I don't want to hear you analyze what we have—what we _had_," he corrected, bitterly it seemed to her. "Don't want to hear it reduced to involuntary reflexes and mechanisms."

"That's not what I was saying, Mal. Were you even listening?" Her voice hardened with annoyance as Mal broke eye contact and turned away. He was muttering angrily to himself. He seemed bent upon pig-headedly ignoring the meaning of her words. If he was going to persist in purposefully misunderstanding her, she'd soon have to abandon reasoned persuasion. "After what I just said, can you still believe that what we had together was nothing more than flesh meeting flesh and elevated hormone levels?"

Mal was beyond the reach of reason at this point. "Flesh—hormones—it just—makes me—" Mal swung his fist at the bulkhead, as words became inadequate to express his feelings.

"Mal," she began, extending her hand in a soothing gesture, which he side-stepped. He shook the pain out of his hand, swearing silently. "You're overwrought. You need—"

"What I _need_," he ground out, "is to be left _alone._ I already done told you that, Inara."

She reached out toward him, intending to take his hand gently in hers, to see if he needed a weave. He visibly recoiled from her touch.

She withdrew her hand and straightened her posture, gathering her dignity around her like a cloak.

"Go away," he said, low and dangerous. "_Go away."_

. . .

She left him standing under his dark cloud. Inara was both puzzled and angry over the encounter. He rejected her reasoned explanations, he rejected her soothing gestures, he rejected her calming words.

Companion training was supposed to help her navigate situations like this. It ought to enable her to reduce a client's stress level and bring him comfort. But every technique she'd been taught seemed to backfire with Mal. Talking, gestures and other unspoken communication, body language—all her most tried and true techniques only served to antagonize him further. Never had her Companion training failed her so completely.

Instead of comfort, their encounter brought anger, frustration, and trouble.

Well.

Well, and why should _she_ care? she thought, as her own anger shot up to the boiling point. This was the man who had betrayed her with Zoe! Why was it important to her what he thought about the supposed "meaning" of love? It didn't mean a damn thing—not when he could spout such profoundly beautiful thoughts about the meaning of sex between two true loves, and then turn around and betray her with another woman. He was false, false, false.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

_薄情 __bóqíng [inconstant] _

_花心 __huāxīn [fickle]_

_外心 __wàixīn [unfaithful]_

* * *

___A/N: They didn't do such a good job of talking to each other, did they? More like talking at each other and around each other. You can talk at me, around me, or to me, by leaving a review. :-)_


	19. Chapter 19

What Begins with an Apple, Part 10a

_River damages Saffron's calm._

A/N: I want to thank my sister especially for her contributions to Simon's scene. Chinese and other non-English expressions are translated in the glossary at the end.

* * *

When she got out of her room the next time, Saffron moved very carefully and stealthily, waiting until she could pass unnoticed through the passenger lounge, up the stairs, and through the corridor. Outside the dining room she paused and listened. Her goal lay ahead, beyond the dining room, and it was here that she was most likely to encounter a crew member. Satisfied at last that no one was there, she quietly entered the room.

"Going somewhere?"

Saffron spun around. River stood on half-point, elevated high on the ball of her right foot, with her left foot held gracefully in aerial position and her arms spread in a dancer's pose.

"Can't throw me off balance," River declared, as she held the pose for an impossibly long time.

Saffron watched in silence as River moved her arms through first, second, third and fourth positions to end with one finger pointing gracefully at her own head.

"Already off-balance. Any perturbation promotes regression toward equilibrium."

Saffron had nothing to say.

"You like to throw people off-balance," River continued. "Take advantage of the confusion and sow your seeds where they'll do most harm."

"My seeds?" Saffron asked faintly.

"Seeds," River replied. "Seeds of contention. Magic pebbles. 'They grew into a big tree and they climbed up the tree into a magical land with unicorns and harps.'" River mimed the actions with balletic grace.

Saffron was completely confused.

"Honey, there are children present," River stated, looking past Saffron. As soon as Saffron turned her head, River executed a series of _pas de bourée_, re-positioning herself to cut off Saffron from her goal.

Saffron looked over her shoulder. There were no children on this boat. Perhaps she had misunderstood.

"Tiny, helpless children," River added, in a small, timid voice, subtly shifting her position as she danced _pas de basque avec coupé_, one of her favorite steps.

Saffron was tiring of this game. The girl was just plain off her nut. Cracked. Bonkers. Whacko. Remembering the incident in the cargo bay, Saffron unconsciously rubbed her jaw. She eyed River, assessing the chances. That girl wasn't exactly tiny and helpless, was she?

"You think it's a game," River said softly, drawing up one leg in preparation for a _jeté_ that could easily be converted to a snap-kick, should the need arise.

"It _is_ a game," Saffron answered, on surer ground.

"And have you studied Game Theory?" River demanded. She gave Saffron a superior look. "Because _I _have."

Jayne entered the dining room, and saw River holding a noticeably ruffled Saffron at bay. "What the hell you doin' outta your room?" he demanded of Saffron, as he pulled out his gun. "Good work," he said in an aside to River. "You seriously damaged her calm. What didya do, confuse her to death?" Turning back to Saffron he remarked, "She can kill you with her brain, ya know," as he escorted her back to her room.

. . .

Alerted by Jayne that Saffron had somehow flown the coop, Mal and Zoe did a thorough search of her room. Wherever she kept her tools, they were well-hidden. They failed to find any contraband. Mal stood, stony-faced, his weapon at the ready, watching as Jayne finally got his chance to pat down Saffron.

"Strictly business, Jayne," Mal warned.

"Aw, Cap, can't I mix business with pleasure?" Jayne protested.

"Sure, go ahead, Jayne, if ya want to die," Mal replied, as Saffron rolled her eyes.

"I ain't so chicken-hearted as all that. Just 'cause she got the drop on _you_, Mal—"

"嘿 Hēi. Don't underestimate her. She's got more wiles than a—than a Companion."

Jayne snorted.

"Not kidding you, Jayne. If it ain't chickens, it's feathers."

_Now what the__地狱__dìyù__ did Mal mean by that?_ Jayne wondered, as Mal directed Saffron into her room. "I didn't grow up on no ranch, Mal."

"Huh? What's this got to do with growin' up? Or _not_ growin' up, as the case may be," he added in a mutter, as he pulled the door shut, and locked it. The two men hadn't even noticed Saffron's dirty looks, delivered as the two ignored her as a person, treating her like nothing more than a sack of chicken feed. "You let down your guard for an instant, Jayne, she'll be on you like a chicken on a June bug."

"Look, Mal, I understand the job. But what's chickens got to do with it? Or feathers?"

Mal rolled his eyes. "Just guard the door, Jayne. And don't try to talk to her. 'Less you want to get plucked."

. . .

She started off by quoting Virgil.

"_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."_

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts," Simon translated. "Why do you say so, River?"

"What begins with an apple, must end with a horse."

River had been saying that ever since they left Beaumonde. As soon as he had a moment's peace to think about it, Simon had recollected where he had heard that phrase. According to ancient Greek mythology, the goddess of discord, displeased at being excluded from the marriage feast for Peleus and Thetis, threw a golden apple in amongst the gods and goddesses in attendance. It was inscribed, "To the fairest." Three goddesses claimed the right to the apple. Zeus, in a characteristic shuffling off of responsibility, had declined to judge, and left it to a mortal man, a Trojan named Paris, to render a decision. Paris chose Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and in return, she gave him Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. The fact that Helen was already the wife of the king of Sparta, a man with connections among the most powerful Greek princes, precipitated the war.

While this placed the quotation in context, it did nothing to explain why River had the Trojan War on her brain.

Simon had of course observed that River's behavior since the incident on Beaumonde had not been especially stable. Her speech, in particular, had been more than usually cryptic, almost as if she _couldn't_ speak a straightforward sentence. In fact, he hadn't seen her in this kind of state since before Miranda. For the most part, she'd been remarkably coherent for the last several months, aside from a few minor episodes that soon passed. Her behavior in general was not exactly what he'd classify as completely "normal"—but River had always been unique. He couldn't attribute _all_ of her differences to the torture and mistreatment she'd experienced at the Academy, because River had _always_ been an unusual girl. She was an extraordinarily gifted genius, and, though it was hard to say it without sounding like an insufferably 狂妄自大 kuángwàngzìdà 崖岸yá'àn, he was quite familiar with the differences associated with genius, being so very smart himself.

On Beaumonde, he had been truly shocked by her mode of arrival back to the ship. Ip had carried River onto the ship in his arms, and Simon's first fear was that she had been shot. It turned out to be much worse. River was in a state of complete incoherence, and as soon as Ip had set her down in the infirmary, she had leapt off the exam table and tried to escape from the room. Simon had reacted quickly to cut off her access to the door, a move that, in retrospect, was incredibly stupid. She could have inflicted serious bodily harm—on him, on Ip, on both of them at once, had she been so inclined. Luckily, she had taken a defensive stance, and after ten or fifteen minutes of attempts to soothe and approach her, Simon had managed to sedate her. Simon's attention had then been fully claimed by other matters, and it wasn't until much later, when Serenity was well on her way, that he'd been able to investigate the incident that had caused River such distress.

To get at the root of the matter, he had questioned Ip in detail about how the incident unfolded. Understandably, Ip had seemed uncomfortable with the recall, but Simon steered him away from the emotional details and was able to confirm that River had heard at least half of the safeword, and that this seemed to be the trigger for the abrupt change in her behavior. Ip had heard one of the Blue Hands use the term "safeword," and turning the questioning around in typical Ip-fashion, he asked Simon what it was and how it worked. Of course Simon did not reveal the whole phrase to him, nor did he give Ip any further details of River's experiences at the Academy, but he told him that as part of her martial arts training, River had been conditioned to break off an attack if this phrase were used. Unfortunately the Blue Hands knew about this phenomenon and also knew the safeword.

Then Ip had asked the obvious question that somehow everyone else had missed: "Why don't you just change the password?"

If only it were that simple! Or _was_ it? The advantages were obvious. If River's "password" or safeword could be changed, then neither the Blue Hands nor anyone else would be able to play that card again. It would be reserved for Simon to rescue River from another incident like the Maidenhead Bar, should that be necessary.

After kicking himself for never having thought of this possibility before, Simon reflected that he didn't even know how to go about "changing the password." In fact, he didn't really know how it had been "installed" in the first place. His imagination ran wild over all sorts of possibilities. It had to involve conditioning of the limbic system—that much was obvious. It could have been as benign as repeated rehearsals with positive feedback for the correct response, but given the intensity of the reaction (and given what he already knew about the Academy's ways) he suspected that the actual process involved significant aversive and noxious negative feedback conditioning methods.

Pain and suffering. He shuddered to speculate about it, and he was loathe to question River about it. Any time he tried to draw River out about her Academy experiences, it seemed to trigger more post-traumatic stress. And even if he were able to learn all about it, he couldn't imagine repeating such a process in order to "install" a new safeword.

Surely he could find a better way. He would have to ask River about the conditioning process. And be prepared to deal with the consequences, if it brought back horrible memories. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. Most likely the answer would come the same way he'd learned most of what he knew about River's life at the Academy: River would reveal it, one bit at a time, on her own initiative.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

嘿 Hēi [Hey]

_地狱 __dìyù [hell]_

_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. _[Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. (Latin)]

狂妄自大 kuángwàngzìdà [conceited]

崖岸yá'àn [arrogant person]

* * *

_If it's not chickens, it's feathers. Any dancers out there with comments about River's favorite steps? What do you think? Could Simon change the safeword?_


	20. Chapter 20

What Begins with an Apple, Part 10b

_Simon and River trade horses in mid-stream. Saffron damages Jayne's calm._

A/N: "馬 mǎ" is the Chinese word for "horse." Chinese and other non-English expressions are translated in the glossary at the end. I'd put in mouse-over translations, but unfortunately, fanfictiondotnet does not allow it. You'll have to scroll down to the glossary, _then_ you can laugh at the jokes.

* * *

Meanwhile, Simon was still puzzling out what River meant by all her references to the Trojan War. "What begins with an apple," he repeated, "must end with a horse. River, do you mean the Trojan Horse?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Oh. _Of course,_ silly me," Simon responded, sarcastically. "Why didn't I think of it myself? That phrase applies so obviously to our current situation." River gave him that _You Boob_ look. He absolutely detested being on the receiving end of that look, not the least because she was usually right, he was missing something obvious. "I'm _not_ stupid, River. I know you made that pronouncement over the bowl of apples in the dining room. But so far I haven't seen anything resembling a horse, Trojan or otherwise, on this ship."

"木馬 Mùmǎ," River said.

"Does it elucidate the meaning if one speaks in proper Chinese?" Simon inquired, switching effortlessly to the polite and stylized Chinese frequently used in Osiris high society.

"Perhaps it may, 哥哥 gēge," River responded in the same language.

"I can think of several references to horses in classical Chinese," Simon remarked. "馬面 Mǎ Miàn_, _the guardian of the Underworld, for instance. Or 兵馬俑 Bīngmǎyǒng, the statuettes of warriors and horses buried with Qin Shi Huang, the first Chin emperor."

"千軍萬馬 Qiānjūnwànmǎ."

"Ye-es," Simon responded, still uncertain of where this conversation was headed.

"分道揚鑣 Fēndàoyángbiāo."

"Part ways, River?" Simon questioned, confused. Then he saw what she was driving at, and racked his brains for other expressions involving horses. "I see. We might as well 死馬當活馬醫 sǐmǎdānghuómǎyī."

"做牛做馬 Zuòniúzuòmǎ," River responded, her eyes dancing with delight now that she knew that Simon understood the game and would play along.

"千里馬 Qiānlǐmǎ," he offered.

"黑馬 Hēimǎ."

"鞍馬 Ānmǎ."

"跳馬 Tiàomǎ."

"作馬 Zuòmǎ."

"跑馬 Pǎomǎ."

Simon gave River a sharp look, saw that she was perfectly aware of the alternative meaning of what she was saying, and retorted, "心猿意馬 Xīnyuányìmǎ."

"馬屁 Mǎpì," River fired back.

"Hey, let's be civil here," Simon responded with a grin. "And let's not forget some of the obvious ones, River. Like 特洛伊木馬 Tèluòyī Mùmǎ—_the_ Trojan Horse, of course."

"A horse is a horse, of course, of course," River sang, "And no one can talk to a horse of course…"

"Or 木馬病毒 mùmǎbìngdú," Simon interrupted, "a Trojan horse virus."

"中箭落馬 Zhòngjiànluòmǎ."

"That's for sure. I wouldn't want to think of the damage that could cause."

River paused. She'd only been trading another horse-related phrase, but Simon had interpreted it as if she were commenting on his last. That was it. Key to the lock. Solution to the puzzle. "Gotta see a man about a horse." Go to the Captain, and explain….She reached for the correct mode of expression, tried to grasp it. The words…the words wouldn't come. She needed to communicate, but allegory was the only avenue for outlet. _What begins with an apple must end with a horse._ "Trying to figure out how to move forward without sacrificing Iphigenia."

Simon didn't say it, but his whole face expressed his confusion at her abrupt change of topic. He looked at River, and saw that the sparkle that had lit her eyes as she traded horses with him was now replaced by a cloudy look. She was considerably less lucid than she had been just a moment before.

"What begins with an apple must end with a horse," River repeated, with an exhausted look.

"Yes, 妹妹 mèimei," Simon agreed, and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he guided his sister into her room, and saw her settled comfortably in her bed.

. . .

Mal had warned him not to talk with Saffron. Jayne didn't intend to do no talkin'. All he had to do was stand there lookin' menacing, and the woman 'd toe the line. Jayne had his menacing look down cold—it was his stock-in-trade, how he got his job in the first place. He posted himself outside the door, ready for whatever trick the Cap'n's blushing psychotic would-be bride tried to pull next.

A couple hours later, he was still waitin'. Woman hadn't made a peep. He didn't exactly consider the silence to be a good sign, so he determined to open the door and check up on what sorta 狗屎 gǒushǐ she was up to.

"I'm comin' in," he announced, rapping on the door. A thought struck him. "You decent in there?"

"Sure am, sugar plum," a sexy voice answered.

"Ain't talkin' with you," he informed her, as he unlocked the door. "Time for you to visit the head." He pulled open the door, to find Saffron lying sprawled on top of the bed…naked.

"No need for talkin', big guy," she said, rolling towards him and allowing her legs to part langorously. "I'm ready."

Jayne didn't doubt it.

"You're very…big," she said, directing her sultry gaze at his midsection. Men were natural 鳥人 niǎorén, and this one was no exception. He was already preening. "Is it true that every part of you is…big?"

"Ulp," gulped Jayne, as he unthinkingly slid the door shut behind him.

"Sshh," she said, "No talkin', like the Captain said. I'd rather learn the hard way, just how big 'big' is." Her hands were already on his belt buckle.

Jayne's voice was a deep bass growl. "I'm warnin' ya, I never kiss 'em on th—"

Saffron did not reply. Her mouth was already busy.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

木馬 Mùmǎ [Wooden horse, or Trojan horse]

哥哥 gēge [elder brother]

馬面 Mǎ Miàn [Horse-Face]

兵馬俑 Bīngmǎyǒng [the Terracotta army, the statuettes of warriors and horses buried with Qin Shi Huang, the first Chin emperor.]

千軍萬馬 Qiānjūnwànmǎ [A magnificent army with thousands of men and horses (idiom meaning "an impressive display of manpower" or "all the King's horses and all the King's men")]

分道揚鑣 Fēndàoyángbiāo [lit. to take different roads and urge the horses on, (idiom meaning "to part ways")]

死馬當活馬醫 sǐmǎdānghuómǎyī [give medicine to a dead horse (idiom meaning "to keep trying everything in a desperate situation")]

做牛做馬 Zuòniúzuòmǎ [work like an ox or a horse (work extremely hard)]

千里馬 Qiānlǐmǎ [a ten thousand mile horse (a fine steed)]

黑馬 Hēimǎ [Dark horse]

鞍馬 Ānmǎ [Pommel horse]

跳馬 Tiàomǎ [Vaulting horse]

作馬 Zuòmǎ [Sawhorse]

跑馬 Pǎomǎ [Horse race or riding a horse at a fast pace (also means "a wet dream")]

心猿意馬 Xīnyuányìmǎ [Heart like a frisky monkey, mind like a cantering horse (an idiom meaning "hyperactive, uncontrollable")]

馬屁 Mǎpì [Horse's ass]

特洛伊木馬 Tèluòyī Mùmǎ [the Trojan Horse]

木馬病毒 mùmǎbìngdú [Trojan horse computer virus]

中箭落馬 Zhòngjiànluòmǎ [to be struck by an arrow an fall from one's horse (idiom for "a serious setback")]

妹妹 mèimei [younger sister]

狗屎 gǒushǐ [crap]

鳥人 niǎorén [pricks (lit., "bird people"]

* * *

_If you enjoyed this chapter send me a whinny. Or a review. Even if you're a neigh-sayer. (For those rolling their eyes and groaning: next chapter is nearly 100% pun-free.)_


	21. Chapter 21

What Begins with an Apple, Part 11a

_Confrontation and torment._

* * *

One minute later, Saffron, fully dressed, slipped out of her cell, closing the door on the oaf who lay sprawled out cold on the floor. The sedative would last a good while, but she needed to move quickly and quietly before anyone else on the ship knew she was on the loose.

After a quick stop in the shower room to pick up her tools, she made a silent tour of the cargo bay. She selected three of her favorite toys from the hidden compartments of the chicken crate, and pocketed them. She also took the time to examine Malcolm Reynolds's cargo thoroughly. She worked her way systematically through the rows of crates from Holden Brothers—eighteen, nineteen—. Voices from above caused her to slip through the door to the empty passenger lounge and wait in the shadows until the coast was clear to the engine room.

She'd studied the Class 03-K64 Firefly in great detail, and it was the work of a second to glide silently through the door, locate the target, and position one of her toys—the adhesive was already prepped and the timer already programmed. She slipped quietly back to the threshold just as Kaylee became aware of her presence.

"Lookin' for something?"

"Oh!" Saffron exclaimed. "I thought this was the way to the dining room."

Kaylee narrowed her eyes at her, clearly not believing the innocent act.

That 所有的妓女的母亲在地狱 suǒyǒu de jìnǚ de mǔqīn zài dìyù Saffron had clearly made her way to the engine room in order to perpetrate an act of sabotage, and Kaylee was determined not to let her do it. She'd already had enough of that 泼妇 pōfù hurtin' her girl—like the time she crossed the drive feeds and sent Serenity straight into the net—and the other time, on Bellerophon, when she stripped the filament in the grav-dampener—had to land, that time. No way was Kaylee gonna let it happen again. "Don't take another step into my engine room," she said, raising the wrench she held in her hand in a threatening gesture.

Saffron didn't back away. She was gathering information, collating data, adding it to the crew interactions she'd observed earlier. She decided how to play this one. "Don't get too worked up, honey. It's bad for the baby."

"What?!" Kaylee was truly thrown. She was only eight weeks along; she couldn't possibly show yet, particularly in a jumpsuit. How could that 恶棍 ègùn know?

"Oh, it shows, sweet-pea," Saffron cooed. "Your hair and fingernails, a certain glow in your skin. Perfectly obvious to anyone who's looking. So," she continued conversationally, "things have been going_ well_ for you since I last visited. You and your boyfriend have been busy. Funny thing, out here in the Black, there's not much choice of partners—even the bottom of the barrel begins to look good."

"Simon ain't the bottom of the barrel! Not by a long shot!" Kaylee was wrathful.

"I wasn't referring to _him_, pumpkin." She paused to let the insult sink in.

"Why, you—"

"_He_ doesn't have much choice out here—which is why he's willing to settle for the likes of you. Man like him, highly educated, cultured, from a Core family of high status—he could have his pick of the most beautiful, well-educated and intelligent women in the Core—well-connected women, whose influence could promote him to the top of his profession, instead of acting as a ball and chain."

"I ain't no ball and—"

"No, of course you _'ain't'_," Saffron mocked nastily. "Out here, what does it matter? There's nowhere for him to go. Just sit here and stagnate. Might as well get some play in, procreate, find a willing female who's good for a 戳 chuō when he gets the urge."

"How dare you!"

"Too bad the only available 雞白 jībái is an uneducated hick with engine grease all over her face."

"Oh, 肏你祖宗十八代 cào nǐ zǔzōng shíbā dài!" Kaylee's response was a really bad insult, but it was accompanied by tears, and Saffron felt she was close to winning. Time to play the next card.

"And so here you are, all knocked up and no husband." Saffron sighed theatrically, shaking her head. "The shame of it…"

She hadn't expected the little mechanic to show such spirit. But there she was, flipping the bird, giving Saffron the finger…wait. Not _that_ finger. The one next-door. With a ring on it. An engagement ring. 糟糕 Zāogāo. How had she missed that? She was sure it hadn't been there before. She'd specifically looked when they were all assembled in the passenger lounge ragging on their Captain—none of the crew had sported wedding or engagement rings. But Saffron was nothing if not flexible in her game plan, and she was already making her next move when Simon came striding down the hallway, calling out, "Kaylee, have you seen—"

"Oh," he said, taking in Saffron's presence at the threshold of the engine room, and Kaylee's furious look.

"Doctor," Saffron said brightly, "congratulations on your engagement to this young…" She trailed off, waving a hand vaguely. Kaylee huffed angrily at the insult of omission. Simon immediately noticed that he'd come upon a kind of stand-off, but he hadn't yet picked up on the extreme degree of hostility between the two women.

"Thank you," he said stiffly, as he began to wonder what was up.

"You have quite the picture of wedded bliss to look forward to," Saffron continued, in a honeyed, cultured voice. "You and your lovely country lass, in perfect domestic harmony."

"Ye-es," Simon answered, uncertainly. What was this 不悔恨的 潑婦 bùhuǐhènde pōfù up to?

"Don't listen to her, Simon," Kaylee admonished. "She's a lyin', hurtful, mean old 狐狸精 húli jīng—"

"Language, cupcake, tsk, tsk," Saffron tut-tutted. She addressed Simon again. "I wish you hundreds of fat children."

"Um—" Simon began, unsure whether to respond with civility to this dirty 脱空汉 tuōkōnghàn or not.

"And congratulations on getting started with the family." She winked at Simon and spoke conspiratorially. "She'll make a good mother."

"Of course she will," Simon answered. He was beginning to see what Saffron's game was. _Neither confirm nor deny_, he said to himself.

"She's getting a good head-start," Saffron remarked.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Simon answered coldly.

"Oh! I'm sorry, did you not know?" Saffron responded, all feigned concern. "Then is it not yours? Which of the other gentlemen is the…" she trailed off again. "Perhaps that thin, tall young fellow—about your age, Doctor, but not quite as handsome. Not everyone has discriminating taste." She let her eye stray to Kaylee.

Simon locked eyes with Kaylee. He wasn't always the best at communicating with women, and he often said the wrong thing to Kaylee, but he recognized the bitch act Saffron was pulling perfectly well. He'd seen enough society women pull it on Osiris, and it reminded him again of how lucky he was to have found someone like Kaylee to live his life with. He couldn't imagine Kaylee ever pulling a bitch act on anybody. There wasn't a mean bone in her body. It was time to put a stop to this.

"You're supposed to be confined to your room, Saffron. What are you doing here?" he asked, coldly.

"Just came for a chat," Saffron smiled, insincerely.

"I'll thank you not to…'chat'…with my fiancée," Simon replied. "I'll escort you back to your quarters." When Saffron did not move, he gestured, with polite rudeness, for Saffron to precede him down the hall, back toward the passenger dorms.

Kaylee watched their retreating backs, and the tears ran down her face. She knew it wasn't right, to let that 妓女 在 地獄 jìnǚ zài dìyù get to her like this, but the 贱货 jiànhuò had chosen her barbs well, and insecure feelings she had thought she'd put to bed long ago burbled up to the front of her mind to plague her. Maybe she really was all that was left at the bottom of the barrel. Simon had chosen her. She didn't doubt the sincerity of his proposal, only a few hours old, but maybe he was just making the best of a truly limited situation. It wasn't like he had any kind of choice, not really. The only women on this boat were his own sister, a new widow as wasn't lookin', the Cap'n's truelove, and her…and—他妈的 tāmādē!—Saffron. If Simon had a chance to look around in the wider 'Verse, would he still choose her? Or was it true, that if he could, he'd dump her and her simple Rim-world ways for a smarter, more educated, more sophisticated, better woman? As she cried miserably, Kaylee knew that part of it was just her pregnant hormones talkin', but she couldn't set aside the nagging worry that Saffron was right—at least someways right. Simon was with her 'cause she was the only thing he had.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

所有的妓女的母亲在地狱 suǒyǒu de jìnǚ de mǔqīn zài dìyù [mother of all the whores in hell]

泼妇 pōfù [shrew, bitch]

恶棍 ègùn [bully, villain (lit., "evil stick")]

戳 chuō [poke]

雞白 jībái [vulgar expression for a female body part (lit. "pure chicken")]

肏你祖宗十八代! Cào nǐ zǔzōng shíbā dài [F-k your ancestors to the eighteenth generation!]

糟糕 Zāogāo [Crap]

不悔恨的 潑婦 bùhuǐhènde pōfù [remorseless harridan]

狐狸精 húli jīng [vixen, bitch (lit., "fox spirit")]

脱空汉 tuōkōnghàn [liar]

妓女 在 地獄 jìnǚ zài dìyù [whore from hell]

贱货 jiànhuò [despicable creature (lit., "cheap goods")]

他妈的 tāmādē [damn it]

* * *

_Saffron is sooo mean! How could she do that to Kaylee? Your comments are appreciated._


	22. Chapter 22

What Begins with an Apple, Part 11b

_Confrontation and snark._

* * *

Saffron didn't give up easily, and she kept talking at him all down the hallway, picking at his relationship with Kaylee, trying to find the chinks. She was determined to ruffle his feathers. Simon finally decided to take the offensive.

"You know, back on Osiris, I could have had my pick of Core beauties."

"You certainly could have," she answered.

"High society girls, rich, well-connected. I'm of a good family; I was a prodigy at my profession. You might say I was the one being courted. Lots of parents of young women wanted me for their son-in-law."

"And clearly you never let this go to your head," she replied blandly.

"Oh, never," he rejoined, sarcastically. "I hired a secretary to review the applications for the post of Wife of Dr Simon Tam. Only the top three percent of applicants were allowed to date me."

Saffron realized she was being toyed with, and got meaner. "And that's why you want to tie yourself to an uneducated hick from a backwater moon with no indoor plumbing."

"The state of the plumbing on Harvest is neither here nor there, since we live on this spaceship."

"And when her parents get turned out of their lodgings, because they can't pay the rent, they'll move in with you."

"They don't rent lodgings," he corrected, a stickler for accuracy.

"When they lose the farm because they can't make mortgage payments—"

"Her father runs a machine shop," Simon informed Saffron, in an annoyingly helpful voice.

Saffron refused to be thrown by his interruptions, and counted it as a plus that he was revealing information. The gleeful note in her voice shone through as she painted the picture of his future. "When the agents come to repossess his shop, they'll move in with you and your bride, and you'll have to listen to their uncultured voices talking about hog-calling and who won the pie-eating contest at the last country fair. They'll be mighty glad to have a doctor in the family. You can take care of Aunt Binny's bunions and the boils that cousin Jed got when he followed a skunk through a nettle patch in hot pursuit, thinking to catch a good dinner. You can take care of Uncle Barty Babyface, the village idiot—result of too much cousin-to-cousin inbreeding. Every evening after dinner, when Poppa Frye's stomach begins to trouble him, he'll give you organ recitals, and Momma Frye will regale you with tales of the quilting bee and all the latest gossip from the church ladies' butter-and-egg fund committee."

"And that will be _so_ much better than my own parents' gossip about the scandalous occurrences at the d'Arbanville's ball," Simon retorted. "And certainly a step up from my parents' friends buttonholing me at cocktail parties in an attempt to get a free consultation. People are the same, all over the 'Verse; the only difference is the context they're in."

Saffron wasn't ready to give up. "And then your wife will beg you to let her no-account brother live with you, just until he gets back on his feet, and she'll never notice that his drinking is a problem."

"And that will be _so_ much better than my father's younger half-brother coming to sponge off us for weeks at a time—just until he completes his detox program—_again_—at an exclusive private clinic—only the best celebrities detox there, you know. Just what are you trying to scare me with, Saffron? Do you think I can't tell a good woman from a bad one?"

. . .

When Simon opened the door to Saffron's room, he found Jayne knocked out cold on the floor. He immediately knelt down and felt for a pulse. Good, pulse was steady. He looked up abruptly to find Saffron much closer to him than he had imagined she could get in such a short time, and he stood up quickly and stepped away. The woman was truly dangerous. He spoke into the comm. "Saffron has knocked out Jayne. I need assistance in the passenger dorm." He turned again to find that Saffron, somehow, had moved again, and he didn't know how she'd gotten so far, so fast. Clearly, even the few moments he'd been distracted by—oh, let's see—making sure Jayne wasn't dead and calling for help, were enough for her to try something devious. Clearly she needed to be watched like a hawk.

"Go stand with your hands up against the wall," he ordered, brandishing his pocket pistol. He didn't know if that was a good idea but he'd seen it done on cop shows on the cortex. He felt like a complete and utter fool inside, but tried to keep up a tough, hard-boiled façade. He knelt down again, located Jayne's pulse, and began assessing his injuries, all the while trying to keep watch on Saffron as she stood against the wall and keep his gun pointed in a safe direction. 天啊 Tiān ā, it felt strange to be examining a patient while holding a pistol.

Simon had run out of things he could do for Jayne without the further resources of the infirmary or at least his medical bag, so he waited for back-up. "So what did you use to knock him out?" he asked Saffron.

"Am I allowed to speak?" she responded, still facing the wall.

"Yes, if you answer my question."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She turned her head and looked at him with defiance.

Simon looked at her with complete skepticism.

"I have no idea how he got there," she said, looking down at Jayne.

"I see. And I suppose you have no idea how you got to the engine room either?"

"I was looking for the dining room."

"狗屁 Gǒupì," Simon retorted, surprised to find himself using such strong language, but it just seemed appropriate to the situation.

"Good on ya, Doc," Mal said, entering the room with his gun drawn. "'Bout time you learned to use appropriate language. Alright, Saffron, what kind of 奸詐的 jiānzhàde evil 狗屎 gǒushǐ you trying to pull this time?"

. . .

Mal and Simon pulled Jayne out of Saffron's room, locked her in, and carried Jayne to the infirmary for treatment. As soon as she was alone, Saffron opened her secret stash and got to work. Besides the tools and toys already collected there, there were the ones she'd retrieved from the chicken crate on today's excursion, minus of course the ones already concealed in the engine room and deployed elsewhere along her way. Fortunately no one had thought to search her again before locking her in. She carefully concealed the electronic door opener that she'd taken off Jayne at the beginning of today's escapade. It would come in very handy.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

天啊 Tiān ā [God]

狗屁 Gǒupì [Bullshit]

奸詐的jiānzhàde [devious]

狗屎 gǒushǐ [crap]

* * *

_Out-snark Simon? No way! Express your opinion in a review._


	23. Chapter 23

What Begins with an Apple, Part 12a

_River's pursuit of the Salmon of Wisdom takes her to Inara's door._

* * *

Mal claimed he didn't like complications, but he sure was good at generating them. Despite her anger at him, and despite the deep sense of betrayal that she'd felt when she discovered he'd been conducting an affair with Zoe on the side while professing love for her—Inara couldn't hate Mal. She had broken off their relationship, but there were still ties that bound them. 藕断丝连 Ǒuduànsīlián—River's quotation was apt. Inara had discovered on Beaumonde that she couldn't even enjoy the attentions of another man. She'd spent the entire appointment with her client thinking of Mal, and comparing the man—mostly unfavorably—to Mal, nevermind that she and Mal were no longer lovers.

Mal had looked physically pained by her verbal duel with Saffron, and Inara's heart had gone out to him. She'd have understood it completely, if they hadn't already broken up, if they were still a couple. He _had_ asked her to marry him, and if that proposal were still on the table, she'd have understood his shock.

It was exactly what she had told him on Bandiagara: their relationship worked, and worked beautifully, when viewed in isolation. Just them. But they couldn't live that way, isolated from everything and everyone else. They usually did well in space; they did well on remote worlds like Bandiagara and Beylix. But add the complications of civilized life to the mix, and things began to fall apart. And, as Inara had learned, even the journeys in space weren't exactly uncomplicated.

Mal couldn't deal with her past, her profession. Even had there been no question of his fidelity (she set that firmly aside for separate consideration), there was _that_, acting as a barrier between them. Mal dealt with her profession by pretending most of the time that it didn't exist. It was not a very mature way of dealing with it, and it wouldn't work in the long term. She had thought he'd made a few baby steps. Like the time in bed (was it really only two weeks ago?) that she'd…well, never mind what she'd done. What he'd said about it had surprised her. He'd actually said that he was _glad_ she had more experience. She could chalk it up to his feeling such intense pleasure that he was temporarily incapable of objecting to anything. She'd sexed the argument right out of him. But he _had_ said it. And then, when she told him that she needed to visit a civilized planet for the appointments whose true purpose she still concealed from him—he had reacted, not with the cheerful cooperation of her fantasy, nor with the jealous rage of her nightmare, but in fact much better than her prediction of grudging participation. He had trusted her. And just three days ago he had trusted her again, despite their differences, to pilot his beloved ship while he recovered from an arduous day on Beaumonde.

But he wasn't there yet. Confronted with reality of her profession, he would shatter. Couldn't deal with the technical details. Couldn't possibly understand what underlay her decisions on Beaumonde. She must never tell him about—

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on her door. Was it Mal?

. . .

She paused before Inara's door, seeking clarity. The answer was there, somewhere in the swirling miasma of her mind, but it eluded her grasp, slipping from her fingers and swimming away like the Salmon of Knowledge. Some said the fish was really a bard, a bard with the wisdom of past, present, and future. Many had tried to catch the fish and gain the wisdom of the bard. In the story, the fish was cooking in the pan, and Fionn burnt his finger on it. Like Sigurd in a parallel mythos, he doused the damaged digit in his mouth, and thusly gained the knowledge of past, present, and future. Learned the language of the birds. Bards. Birds. Chickens. There was something about the chickens….River tried to extract the strand from the ball of yarn, but it was tangled with the others and pulled them all along.

Salmon of Wisdom, tree of knowledge. Intuitions were not answers. Metaphor was not expression. Allegory….

It was this, precisely, that had directed her footsteps to Inara's door, to seek the counsel of the more enlightened. Inara could read subtext like no other aboard. She was educated in allegory, culture and history. She might even know about the Tamarians. _Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Temba, his arms wide. _River wondered if she should mention Darmok. An ancient cortex drama designed for entertainment: it was not a historical document. It was fiction. But was that not the purpose of fiction? To teach us more about the truths of the human condition. Just because something was fiction didn't make it not true. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra faced a common enemy. They had to work together to overcome. _Shaka, when the walls fell._

Perhaps Inara would understand. Help River differentiate the tangled threads. She needed a clue. Ball of yarn. Scary monsters hiding in the labyrinth.

The apples were key. Of that she was certain. But what meaning may be found in an apple? It wasn't a simple question.

_To see a world in a grain of sand  
__And a heaven in a wild flower  
__Hold infinity in the palm of your hand  
__And eternity in an hour._

River could see a world in a grain of sand. Or the 'Verse in a drop of pond water—amoeba and volvox and stentor—pseudopodic, flagellated, and ciliated protozoans, living their lives, changing and rolling and shouting, unconscious of the manipulation of their environment by god-like creatures larger than themselves. Olympians. The Olympians celebrated at the wedding feast of Peleus and Thetis, but _she_ wasn't invited. What begins with an apple, must end with a horse. But was the horse really the end of all things? Was there even an end, or was it an unbroken circle, or cycle….The dappled horse,

_the dappled grass,  
__And pluck till time and times are done,  
__The silver apples of the moon,  
__The golden apples of the sun._

Had we but world enough and time. The wanderer, the weary wanderer, in a ship…

_Like those Nicean barks of yore,  
__That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,  
__The weary, wayworn wanderer bore  
__to his own native shore._

Ancient Nicaea, known for its creed. 我信獨 一上帝， 全能的父， 創造天地和 有形無形萬物的主。Wǒ xìn dú yī shàngdì, quánnéng de fù, chuàngzào tiāndì hè, yǒuxíng wúxíng wànwù de zhǔ. Something was missing…about all his works and all his ways. Fiends and monsters, sirens and sorceresses: they detained the wanderer. Pigs. Turned them into pigs. He grew old with wandering, as did so many. The swineherd Eumaeus brought him home. Nice, mice. Mice are nice. Nicene, Mycene. Atreides King of Mycenae returned with spoils of war to find a lover in his wife's bed. Murder and bloodshed, a family grown old in the ways of violence. A daughter sacrificed, a brother bent on revenge, hounded by furies. So many versions, so many threads, tangled and woven in a web, in a shroud unraveled by night.

River raised her hand and knocked on Inara's door.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

藕断丝连 Ǒuduànsīlián [lit. "Lotus roots may break, but the fiber remains joined" (idiom meaning "Lovers part, but still long for one another")]

我信獨 一上帝， 全能的父， 創造天地和 有形無形萬物的主。Wǒ xìn dú yī shàngdì, quánnéng de fù, chuàngzào tiāndì hè, yǒuxíng wúxíng wànwù de zhǔ. [I believe in one god, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. (The Nicene Creed)]

* * *

_A look inside the heads of two of Serenity's women. Complicated places, huh? Or maybe just confusing! You tell me. But that's what you get when you look inside the heads of two people who just...aren't quite right (as Mal would say) at the moment. And more literary, historical, and sci-fi references than you can shake a stick at. Extra points if you spot the Galaxy Quest reference._


	24. Chapter 24

What Begins with an Apple, Part 12b

_Inara plays Twenty Questions with River. Allegorical and metaphorical speech abounds._

* * *

Inara opened the door and found River on the other side, holding an apple.

"Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei_," River said, offering it to her. "For the fairest."

"Thank you, River," Inara said, accepting the apple. "But I'm not Aphrodite, you know."

"Goddess of Lo—"

"No, thank you," Inara returned, absolutely declining to have anything to do with the divinity. "I'll stick with mere mortal. Human problems are complex enough without adding divine issues to the mix."

"The apples—"

"Are not the Apples of the Hesperides, River," Inara finished. "Jayne may be strong, but I doubt he could compete with Hercules, who had to use all his strength to get those apples."

"Jayne didn't get the apples. Nor Angus. _His_ apples were silver and gold—"

"Angus?" Inara wondered whom River was talking about. She did not recollect any Angus appearing in the ancient Greek myth about the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. River's speech was sometimes perplexingly allegorical, and sometimes it was as tangled as the strands of yarn in a tapestry. _Oh what a tangled web we weave_. She would do her best to try to understand, because she knew River had come to her for a reason.

"The god of love." River could tell Inara was having trouble following, and this time she could readily give the definition.

"Eros?" ventured Inara, feeling like she was a contestant on a quiz show.

_No. Wrong mythos. Sounds like. _"Eris."

"The goddess of discord?" Inara asked River. "Now, I believe you may be on to something. I surely feel the goddess of discord has been admitted to Serenity. That 狐狸精 húli jīng has certainly done her best to discomfit all of us. It'll take all of us pulling together to get the better of her."

River was delighted. She _understood_. "Her face could launch a thousand swans," River stated, then looked confused at her own words. Her face cleared. "She divides."

"Yes, that's her tactic. I've noticed. And against reason and good judgment, I've been influenced by her efforts," Inara said, as she came to the realization that much of the recent conflict between herself and Mal had been, at the very least, exacerbated by Saffron's presence. Had Saffron gone so far as to engineer those conflicts?

River gave Inara a bright smile, as she had understood it perfectly. River tried to give voice to the next important point, but now the exact words eluded her. _Apples. The apples were important. Tell the story. _"Rise above it, as the sun rises. Golden apples of the sun. The hazel wood grows at the fount of wisdom. Three times three, the hazel nuts dropped into the well. He dropped the berry in a stream and caught the silver trout." This part was harder to explain. River didn't quite know herself what she was trying to say, and that made it harder. The words weren't hers.

"A trout, River?" Inara asked, unable to follow. It certainly sounded symbolic, but she was unsure of the meaning of the symbolism. "As in, a fish?"

_Exactly. Except the word itself had multiple meanings. _"_A' bhreac_. Speckled. Trout or salmon. Family Salmonidae. The Salmon of Wisdom. Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bard thou never wert. Burnt his fingers. Sucking his thumb."

Inara recognized the quote from the Earth-that-was poet Shelley. "'To a Skylark'? Do you mean 'bird thou never wert'?" Inara responded, quoting the only part of River's speech she could make any sense of, never having heard of the salmon of wisdom.

"_Bard_ thou never wert." River corrected, severely. _The fish was immortal. In me, past present and future meet. All knowledge was in it. Caught the salmon. Trout. _ _A' bhreac. Fish. Cooked it. The giant child burnt his thumb on it. _"Ouch."

"Are you hurt, River?"

River rolled her eyes. _No._ "Telling a story."

"You're speaking in riddles, 妹妹 mèimei."

"Not a riddle." Trying to be clear, but the words eluded her grasp. Swirling, tangled strands. They swirled away through the mist across the lake, beyond her reach. It was hard, sometimes, to convey the meaning in words, and it was no clearer in her mind than on her tongue. The closest she could approach to meaning was metaphor. Complex meaning conveyed most concisely through story. _Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Shaka when the walls fell._ _That_ was the word. "Allegory."

River opened her mouth to speak, but the fish swam away. Different words came out. "The fountain of wisdom. Arethusa." Different mythos. But it was still important, so she said it anyway. "Arethusa, Erytheia, Hesperia."

"They were the Nymphs of the Evening," Inara interpreted, "the keepers of the Garden of the Hesperides. So we're back to the apples, are we?" Inara had no trouble identifying the references to ancient Greek mythology. Earth-That-Was mythology had been part of her Core education. But what of it? What did River mean?

"Better nymphs of the evening than ladies of the night."

"And just what do you mean by that, River?" Inara asked sharply.

"Daughters of the Night," River corrected. "The Angry Ones. The Gracious Ones."

Her phrases jogged Inara's memory. Those were all euphemistic names for— "Ah, the Furies—also called the Erinyes or Eumenides. I have to agree with you. I wouldn't be eager to encounter the Furies myself."

"Strike offenders with madness," River said. "On the look out for violators of the law and ethics. Protect beggars and strangers. Punish those who steal the birds' young."

"As I recall, they also had snakes for hair and blood dripping from their eyes," Inara added. "Not my type."

"Megaera and Alecto," River stated, giving Inara a scrutinizing look. "Tisiphone not so much."

Inara paused for a moment and regarded River. Each of the Furies had her specialty: Tisiphone punished crimes of murder; Magaera, the jealous one, punished those guilty of marital infidelity; while Alecto, she of implacable anger, punished moral crimes. Was River trying to tell her that she was jealous and angry?

"She ran away once. When she was hurting, jealous and angry, she ran away. She wouldn't speak. He grew older with wandering. 'I will find out where she has gone, and kiss her lips and take her hands…'" River quoted the poem. The poem told the story pretty straightforwardly, and River could speak the words. She hoped Inara would understand.

"Something rustled on the floor, and something called me by my name," River quoted. She focused her eyes on Inara and continued,

"_It had become a glimmering girl_

_With apple blossom in her hair,_

_Who called me by my name and ran_

_And faded through the brightening air."_

"And who was the glimmering girl? A water nymph? Arethusa?" Inara queried. It was a bit like playing charades, only with cryptic words instead of gestures and antics. And she got the idea River was serious, and not really playing. But she didn't get it.

River nodded, then shook her head. Right track, wrong mythos. "Caer," she said, trying to reach the words to explain. "Caer Ibormeith. Turned into a swan."

Inara pondered for a moment. She had never heard of Caer. "She was an ugly duckling?" she guessed. "And turned into a swan?"

No. _No, no, no._ River shook her head. "She was the woman of his dreams. And turned into a swan."

Inara couldn't figure this one out.

"Knew she was a _woman_. Not a swan."

River gazed owlishly at Inara, and construed the verse. "He was the only one who saw her for a woman, not a swan. Looked beyond the bright plumage and saw the woman at the core. Chose her from among a thousand swans."

"Who?" Inara asked in a whisper.

"Angus."

Inara puzzled. _Angus again. Who was this Angus?_ "I still don't understand, 妹妹 mèimei," Inara said. The thought struck her that perhaps River meant this myth, tale, poem—whatever it was—as an allegorical representation of something in real life, so she asked, "Is Angus someone I know?"

Yes. _Yes, yes, yes. _ "Dream Angus. Four birds flew about his head. Aonghais Oig. Four birds, four kisses." River delineated the story of the myth succinctly. River cocked her head at Inara as if to say, _Now do you understand? _Inara shook her head. "Wandering Angus. Loved for a day and a night. Forever."

"For a day and a night. Forever," Inara repeated. "I'm afraid I don't understand, River. How can one day and night be forever?" Try as she might, Inara did not understand the paradox, nor why River was presenting her with it.

"Absence of the definite article means indefinitely. _Là agus oidhche_. For a day and a night. Forever."

"Hmm."

"Silver apples of the moon, golden apples of the sun. Each following the other. Forever." She couldn't have said it plainer. The effort of keeping focus was exhausting. Her message delivered, River drifted out the shuttle door, following the swirling eddies left in the salmon's wake.

. . .

Inara sat down on her sofa in confusion, pondering River's words. She knew River was trying to tell her something, something important. But just what did all that apply to? Was it to do with Saffron? The allusions to Eris, the goddess of discord, certainly pointed that way. If Inara had to guess at Yo-Saff-Bridge's true name, she would have ventured _Eris_ as the most fitting.

And was River also trying to tell her something about her personal life? The talk about Alecto made it seem that way—an oblique way of telling her she was jealous, angry, vengeful. Inara supposed it was true. She _had_ been acting that way, her emotions completely out of control. Where was that Companion control for which she was so famous? She would have said, justly famous, except that it seemed to have completely deserted her at this point. Somehow, Mal managed to provoke her beyond all control. All her Academy training simply deserted her around him. It was as if he could see right through her armor—and with a few well placed prods and pokes, he exposed it for nothing more than borrowed feathers.

And then to whom was River referring when she spoke of Angus? Inara didn't understand all the references to Angus. If Angus was some historical, mythological or literary personage, he was outside the prescribed canon of Companion studies.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei _[To the fairest (Greek)]

狐狸精 húli jīng [vixen, bitch (lit., "fox spirit")]

_A' bhreac_ [salmon or trout (Scottish Gaelic)]

妹妹 mèimei [younger sister]

Erinyes [the angry ones]

Eumenides [the gracious ones]

妹妹 mèimei [younger sister]

_Là agus oidhche [For day and night (Scottish Gaelic)]_

* * *

_Lots of literary references here...yikes! Most of them are either to Greek mythology or Celtic mythology, specifically the story of Angus. Heavy reference to "The Song of Wandering Aengus" by W.B. Yeats. Inara found River's speech perplexingly allegorical: I think she must have studied the Greek stuff but missed out on the Celtic stuff. How about you? Any insights into River's meaning? Drop me a line._


	25. Chapter 25

What Begins with an Apple, Part 13a

_Naked mole rats and Blue Sun._

_A/N: Just want to take a moment to thank those who have left anonymous reviews or who have disabled PM's. I can't thank you personally, but I appreciate your comments!_

* * *

Using Jayne's electronic door opener, she let herself out of the room. She carefully replaced the door opener in its secret cache, closed the door behind her, and slipped into the shower to retrieve the bolt remover. Not chancing the trip through the dining room this time, Saffron removed the bolts from a panel in the cargo bay, and gained access to the crawl space underneath the crew hallway. Gorrammit, this place was filthy! Probably hadn't been cleaned since the hull was laid down fifty years ago. Worse than the gorram chicken crate. In cortex dramas, when people crawled through secret ductwork, it was _never_ this filthy! When she finally reached the panel leading up to the bridge, she waited, listening for sounds of activity. Her view through the holes in the panel was limited, but she could see the pilot's chair was empty, and the autopilot was engaged. She couldn't see or hear anyone, and after waiting and listening for a long time, she decided that whoever was on watch had left the bridge.

Silently she lifted the panel and pulled herself onto the bridge.

River, sitting with her feet drawn up in the co-pilot's seat, whipped a gun out and aimed it directly at her face.

"You're like a human weapon," Saffron gasped. "You're not going to shoot me now, are you?"

River cocked the gun.

"We could…talk some more," Saffron offered.

"Naked mole rat," was River's authoritative reply. The fingers of River's left hand were busy at the control desk, even as she held Saffron at gunpoint.

Saffron was completely confused by this irrelevant statement, but with the gun trained on her, who was she to protest? She tried edging away, but the barrel tracked her precisely. How did that girl do that?

"Eusocial rodent," River elaborated. "One female breeds with multiple males, keeps all the others in a state of subjection. Highly adapted to an underground life. Moves backwards as readily as forwards. _Crawls through tunnels._" River looked Saffron directly in the eye, the gun never wavering from its target. _"Feels no pain."_

Saffron quailed, though she tried desperately to hide it. The mad girl had the trigger partially depressed, and a breath was all it would take to complete the shot. "I…can feel pain," she whispered, unsure of how to play the game for once in her life.

"No. Can't," River answered. "Substance P deficiency in the skin."

At Saffron's terrified bafflement, River rolled her eyes and continued. "Substance P. Neurotransmitter. Without it, pain signals are not transmitted." She snorted and added, "Doesn't mean that you can't inflict _damage._" She locked her eyes on her target and focused her attention back to her aim.

At that moment, Saffron's attention was distracted by the arrival of the Captain and Zoe on the bridge.

"—that 神经病 shén jīng bìng loose on this boat—what the hell is this?" The Captain pulled up short at the sight that greeted him, and in an instant, Saffron had _three_ guns trained on her.

She held up her hands.

"What are you doing here?"

"Came to ask directions," she offered.

"How'd you get here?"

"Naked mole rat. Crawled through tunnel," River responded.

Mal glanced over at the displaced access panel to the crawl space, taking in Saffron's apparent mode of entry, while Zoe covered the prisoner. "So how'd you get into the crawl space?"

"Wish I hadn't," Saffron replied, recovering some of her spunk as she engaged in the more familiar sparring with the Captain. "It's absolutely filthy in there. Do you people never clean?"

"Naked mole rats collect shiny objects and secrete them in their burrows," River inserted.

"Hush a moment, Albatross," Mal said, gesturing. "Asked you a question, Yo-Saff-Bridge. Waitin' on an answer."

"You'll be waiting a good long time then, 爱人 àiren," she replied, with a provoking smile. She made as if to lower her arms, but Zoe intervened.

"You just keep those hands in evidence," Zoe ordered. "And let's make this perfectly clear, _sister_: the Captain ain't your 爱人 àiren."

"Married me, didn't he?"

Zoe's response was sudden and unexpected. In an instant she had Saffron shoved against the bulkhead, the muzzle of her mare's leg pressed against her throat. "You 贱货的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù, I will end you, you so much as—"

"Zoe, stand down," Mal ordered.

"Sir, she's a danger to the ship. Better off killing her and spacing the body." Zoe's eyes were flashing with murderous intent.

"Stand down," he repeated, reinforcing it with a look. His own weapon and River's remained aimed on Saffron. Tempting as it was, spacing Saffron was not an option. "Much as I'd enjoy watchin' you do it, it just ain't the thing to do right now…it'd leave too many unanswered questions." _Such as, why is Saffron even on this boat? What's so important that she's willing to risk every kind of stand-off with us to do it? And—_"Who put you up to this job?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"And why are you here?"

Silence.

"Can't just end her," he said in an aside to Zoe.

"Don't see why not, sir."

"'Cause she's—" he struggled to articulate his reasons without showing all his cards to that evil snake. It was those off-ship partners who were Saffron's protection. If she disappeared without explanation, likely they'd notice, and then there'd be hell to pay. He didn't want to reveal any of his speculations on the subject in front of Saffron. "Just…'cause," he finished, rather lamely. He cocked his head significantly and gave Zoe a pointed look, trying to convey the message.

Zoe was too angry to pick up on his unspoken communication this time. "I can't believe you still got a soft spot for that 潑婦 pōfù," she retorted.

"Zoe." His rising voice carried a warning. _I am not havin' this discussion with you now._ "This ain't the ruttin' town hall."

Zoe did not offer further argument, though the fire in her eyes was barely contained.

"Zoe, you get Jayne. Thorough search of Saffron's quarters and any place she's been on this boat. Dining room, head, cargo bay, engine room…and the gorram crawl space. I'll frisk her for contraband and weapons. Then call the crew for a meeting. River, helm's still yours." Focusing back on Saffron he added, "I expect your full cooperation, or you're goin' back into that chicken crate for the duration. Is that clear?"

. . .

Unfortunately, the search turned up very little. Saffron carried on her person another fuse filament of the type she had previously deployed in the cargo bay, and one other device whose purpose remained obscure. An electronic tracking code was found on one of the two chicken crates in the cargo bay, but it was unclear if this item was a legitimate part of the shipment or placed there by Saffron. The search of her room revealed nothing but an innocuous length of microfilament. Saffron kept mum while Zoe was watching, but whenever the first mate was out of range, she improved her time by harassing Mal with innuendo.

Mal made an excursion into the crawl space. The exploration yielded nothing but a missing sock and an inactive safety deposit box keycard he'd lost through the grating years ago—and one helluva lot of dust. (It really _was _filthy, and he put cleaning the crawl space onto his mental list of captain-y things to do. Damn Saffron for being right about something.)

Meanwhile, Saffron was very pleased. Although she hadn't yet enacted the main plan, things were going _well_. Sure, they'd confiscated a few of her toys, but that, after all, was part of the plan. She had brought plenty to act as decoys, and could afford the sacrifice. They still hadn't discovered her main cache, and her door-opening system was working like a charm. She'd been systematically besting each and every member of the crew she had dealt with so far—well, excepting that crazy girl…and perhaps that snarky doctor, too. But the others—she'd succeeded in messing them around so that they were all thrown off balance. And unless Mal was willing to do a full body-cavity search, he would never discover the really dangerous stuff. _Oh yes, Malcolm Reynolds, you _can_ miss a place you've never been._

. . .

Steeling himself for the onslaught he knew was coming, he unlocked the door and faced Serenity's resident goddess of discord, the tormentor of all aboard.

"Ah, the young scientist!" Saffron exclaimed with a bright smile. "I was wondering when I'd get to spend a little time alone with you."

Ip was disconcerted. Not to mention nervous. On the other hand, it wasn't that long since he'd faced the nameless lethal rod that the Blue Hands carried, looked into the face of death, and…seen his former friend Bill. Bill the Hitman. So, what the hell, could this really be any worse?

"Shower," he said tersely, and gestured for her to proceed down the hallway.

She looked so harmless, so much less menacing than blue-handed men in suits with lethal weapons, but he'd already seen her completely discomfit the Captain, push Zoe into a murderous rage, and knock Jayne out cold. If she could do that to the toughest people he knew, what was she going to do to him?

"You seem like an intelligent, well-educated man, Doctor," Saffron said.

"I am," Ip answered confidently, "but I don't let it go to my head."

"So I'm wondering, why are you on this boat consorting with criminals?"

Ip stared at her. Then he answered, in a quiet voice, "I'm on a mission."

She raised her eyebrows and stared. Ip made a subtle gesture for her eyes only.

_Oh_….This she did not expect. Recovering from her momentary surprise, she gave the Blue Sun countersign. He nodded, and they proceeded silently to the shower.

. . .

"So did it work?" River asked.

"Sure did," he answered. "Shut her right up."

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

神经病 shén jīng bìng [insane person]

爱人 àiren [husband, lover]

贱货的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù [cheap floozy]

潑婦 pōfù [floozy]

* * *

_What is Saffron up to? Who is she working for? Any speculations? _


	26. Chapter 26

What Begins with an Apple, Part 13b

_Inara is furious._

* * *

Saffron stared at her next escort. "Really?" she said. "_You're _going to keep me in line?"

Inara arched her eyebrows. _Don't underestimate me._ "After you."

After a quiet moment, Saffron spoke. "I was surprised to find you still aboard this ship."

"Why is that surprising?"

"I really would have thought…well, you don't need any advice from me to know what you're doing to your career by remaining here."

"You're right. I don't need any advice from you."

"I hate to see you ruining your career like this."

"I'm sure you do," Inara replied, matching Saffron's insincerity exactly.

"I'm sure by now that you recognize it was a poor business decision to free-lance aboard a scruffy cargo vessel like this, but I really expected you to have more intelligence and savvy than to…" She trailed off.

Inara did not give her the gratification of asking for clarification. Saffron was left to carry the impetus on her own.

"What I really want to know, Inara, is why you're willing to ruin your career for a loser like Malcolm Reynolds? Really, what are you thinking?" Saffron looked at her with a slight smile and a little shake of the head, and continued as if she were Inara's best buddy. "Really, Inara, you're a better player than that. You could keep your career, keep company in the best of society, keep the income, and _still_ indulge your taste for low life with Mal Reynolds if that's what you really want. _He_ wouldn't be any the wiser."

Saffron had unknowingly hit her target with that shot. Inara knew she couldn't have known what happened on Beaumonde. She kept her reaction to herself.

"You're smarter and better than that, Inara. You could play him like a dulcimer; he'd never know. Just tell him you have…oh, appointments with the dentist or the doctor or the hairdresser or something…he wouldn't know, and wouldn't think to ask. You could still do him on the road between planetfalls, if that's what you want."

Again, Saffron's chance shot had hit home. Inara kept her face serene and gave no sign.

Saffron was certain that Inara's composed silence concealed something, so she kept on the same tack. "I'm sure he wouldn't say no to a freebie. It's not like he can get it by paying full price. Income like his, it's not as if he has a lot of…options. He really doesn't have much to offer a woman, except his body.

"Ah, but his _body_," Saffron continued, allowing herself a fond little shudder of ecstasy, as if recollecting more than she possibly could know. "Now that body is worth a little risk, isn't it? I suppose that's why you're risking so much for a man like Mal—because ordinarily, a poor-as-dirt, skunk's-luck petty thief and 琐细 suǒxì smuggler just wouldn't be worth the effort, would he? Not worth the sacrifice of a successful career in your chosen profession.

"But that's assuming _he _remains faithful to you, isn't it?" Saffron carried on. She thought she detected the smallest hint of a response in Inara's features, and decided to mine this vein for all it was worth. "And that's a big _if_, let me tell you. Why, when I married him—" Saffron flung the word freely in Inara's face "—he confessed to me…well, maybe I shouldn't say."

Saffron kept silent for a long moment, but it was clear Inara was not going to ask, so eventually she took up the thread again.

"On our wedding night, he confessed to me about all the flings he'd had at Serenity's many ports of call," Saffron confided. "Basically, a girl in every port." Inara snorted, and Saffron rounded on her. "Oh, you can scoff all you want, but do you really know? Do you have any idea, Inara, how Mal spends his time in port when you fly off to receive your clients? Sure, he says he has a job to do. How often do you actually stick around and watch him do the job he says he has?" Inara sniffed, and Saffron was quick to react. "I'm not saying he's making it all up. Of course some of those jobs are real: that's the only way he can pay the bills. But do they really take as long as he says they do? And what does he do for the rest of the time? And who does he do it with?"

They walked in silence for a bit as Saffron let that last thought sink in. "He plays the puritan pretty well. All his lectures about what's morally right, pretending he doesn't know the first thing about carnal desire. But I learned better on our wedding night." She paused for a moment to set the shaft of the wedding barb in the wound she knew she was making. "Don't think for a moment that this is just me taking out my resentment of his betrayal on you. I don't envy you. He may have married me, but I've come to terms with the idea that I'm better off without him." She paused as if trying to make a decision. "You know, as an act of charity, I really should tell you what I learned about him on our wedding night. If only to save another woman from having to go through what I did….

"He's a man of experience. You know that. Despite the puritan act. On our wedding night, he proved it, by doing all manner of naughty on me…Oh, you can laugh all you want, but I'm perfectly serious. I had to fight him off."

"That's not what I heard," Inara said, goaded at last into responding. "You knocked him out with a drugged kiss."

"Did he say that? Did he mention _why_? Have you thought about why I had to resort to such a measure? He may not have succeeded in the final act of penetration, but you never heard what he did before that. All kinds of…you know, at first I thought it was foreplay. I'll admit it, at first I welcomed it. It was my wedding night, after all, and I was expecting…."

Inara couldn't believe the nerve of this woman, persisting with her "innocent bride on the wedding night" act. It was beyond comprehension. But Saffron wasn't finished.

"Well, it started out fine. Pleasurable. He was sweet and attentive, long enough for me to drop my guard. But it kept going. It turned from naughty to nasty." She shuddered, as if in recollection. "Listen, Inara, I may look like an innocent—"

_Oh, you most certainly do _not_, _Inara thought.

"—but I've been around the block. A woman has to take measures to protect herself…"

Inara recognized perfectly well that Saffron was systematically detecting her insecurities and trying to play her on them. It was nonetheless disturbing to listen to Saffron's monolog.

"—and when she's alone, at the mercy of a…man like that, she has to be prepared to defend herself. Particularly when that man turns out to be a maniac rapist, a deviant sexual pervert."

_Well, didn't _that_ just take the cake? _Inara knew, better than anyone else—certainly better than that 狐狸精 húli jīng _Saffron—_exactly what Mal did in bed, and she knew without a doubt that the most adventurous acts he had ever performed were the ones that she herself had encouraged him to try. Saffron had missed the mark completely, and her transparent falsehoods were offensive. It made Inara angry on Mal's behalf. What a load of 鸟话 niǎohuà.

That was it. Inara's blood was boiling. She knew, rationally, that Saffron was just shoveling on the 马屎 mǎshǐ. The woman could spin lies and falsehoods faster than Arachne spun her web. But she'd guessed and prodded and found Inara's weak spots. All the doubts and insecurities Inara had ever had…it was as if Saffron had been privy to her internal debates. She'd touched all the raw nerves. She was 不要脸的东西 bùyàoliǎn de dōngxi. As Saffron opened her mouth to add another outrageous lie to the pile, Inara had suddenly had enough. She spun and kicked hard, catching Saffron off guard, and Saffron was down on the floor, her body curled in pain. Inara glared down at her, breathing hard, her mouth pulled into a snarl of rage.

"What did you do that for, Inara?"

She looked up to find Mal watching her warily from the door of the dining room, as Saffron writhed on the floor. Apparently he had heard none of their conversation. It seemed to Inara that he looked at Saffron like she was the victim of an unprovoked attack, while he looked at Inara like she was an enraged maniac.

. . .

Inara turned and fled to her shuttle, where she locked herself in. She was heedless of Mal calling her name as she left. Mal summoned Simon, who examined Saffron, pronounced her injuries to be minimal, and saw her seated at the table for her meal.

For her part, Saffron played up the injury. She knew the Companion was trained in martial arts, and, since she'd set out deliberately to provoke her, she'd been prepared for an outburst—although the exact moment and form of it had taken her by surprise. She sat at the table pushing food around on her plate listlessly, making a show of her lack of appetite, while she surreptitiously concealed pieces of sausage-style protein lumps filched off the platter at Jayne's elbow for later consumption. The pitiful act worked like a charm, with the doctor and the young scientist openly expressing their concern, and the Captain and the mechanic unable to conceal theirs. Only Zoe regarded her with hard suspicion, while Jayne, oblivious to all, shoveled food onto his plate and thence to his gullet.

She was already planning how best to take advantage of the little wave of sympathy and pity. She determined to milk the supposed injury for all it was worth. If she feigned physical incapacity, she'd have a better chance at taking them by surprise again. As she prepped the most important part of her mission for deployment, it was best that they all believe she was barely capable of moving.

. . .

Despite the way she had teased Mal when Saffron was first discovered aboard, Zoe knew it to be a fact: that woman was damned dangerous. She didn't believe for a second the pitiful act that apparently aroused Mal and the doctor to sympathy for the 贱货的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù. Saffron didn't need rescuing. It was another trick of hers, to throw them off guard. Inara was right on target when she'd detected Saffron's skills in seduction, manipulation, and divisiveness, way back when they'd first encountered her on Triumph. Skills that seemed especially effective with the Captain. Saffron had the capacity to twist Mal around like few other women Zoe had seen. In fact, only Inara could top her.

So. Fight fire with fire. Inara's influence over Mal would trump Saffron's any day. Inara had the power to end this. She simply needed to stop opposing Mal herself and kick him into gear. And to do that, Inara needed to be willing to talk to him.

Mal and Inara had wasted enough time not talking, not working through this misunderstanding of theirs. And even though Zoe had made no secret to Mal that she thought he'd behaved like an ass, it was _Inara_ who needed a good talking-to at this point. Mal had tried. Zoe had seen him, making his attempts at reconciliation, apologizing, agonizing, trying. Ham-fisted attempts, granted, but he'd given it the effort. It was Inara's turn.

While she'd been thinking, Zoe's steps had directed her toward Inara's shuttle.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

琐细 suǒxì [petty]

狐狸精 húli jīng [vixen, bitch (lit., "fox spirit")]

鸟话 niǎohuà [bullshit (literally "bird speech")]

马屎 mǎshǐ [horseshit]

不要脸的东西 bùyàoliǎn de dōngxi [shameless and less than human (lit.: "a thing that has no shame")]

贱货的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù [cheap floozy]

* * *

_Inara and Saffron head-to-head...and Zoe has had enough of this nonsense. Please leave comments and reviews._


	27. Chapter 27

What Begins with an Apple, Part 14a

_Zoe and Inara take tea together. Saffron causes trouble (surprise, surprise!)._

* * *

It was Zoe tapping on the shuttle door. Slipping on her figurative Companion's mask to conceal her state of emotion, Inara invited her in with cool politeness and offered her tea. Zoe entered and accepted the tea. Well. _That_ was a first in Inara's experience.

Zoe, always a woman of few words, was silent as Inara used the preparation of the tea to cover her feelings of awkwardness at this tête-à-tête with Mal's first mate and mistress. Obviously, Zoe hadn't come here for idle chit-chat, and as she sat on the sofa with her injured leg propped up, Inara decided that the burden of starting the conversation ought to fall on her shoulders. After all, Zoe had sought _her_ out.

With the tea ready, Inara sat gracefully on her end of the sofa, poured, and handed Zoe the cup.

Zoe took a sip. "Mmm. Inara, that's good tea."

"谢谢你 Xièxie nǐ." Inara took a sip from her own cup, and waited for Zoe to take her cue. _Ball's in your court, Zoe._

Zoe stretched and shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. Both her outstretched leg with its mechanical brace and her enlarged belly got in the way of proper posture. At last she leaned back in a position just so unlike the Zoe-of-military-bearing that Inara was tempted to laugh.

"Just can't seem to get comfortable these days," Zoe remarked. She reached behind herself to massage her lower back.

_Must be uncomfortable, carrying the extra weight of the baby. __该死__Gāisǐ__. Baby. Zoe was having a baby, the baby that was the last she had of Wash—or was it? Mal's baby? __该死__Gāisǐ__. _Inara bit back the upset feelings, knowing that the careful mask of her features had betrayed nothing. _She _wouldn't ever have the opportunity to carry Mal's baby. _该死__Gāisǐ__!_ Had she really just had that thought?

"It's the bruising," Zoe observed, and Inara was immediately ashamed of herself for being caught up in petty jealousy. Zoe had been _attacked._ Had she not been wearing body armor, she would be dead.

"Does it hurt much?" Inara managed to ask.

"Hmm. Some." Zoe shifted again, and this time Inara saw the tells. The first mate concealed the twinges pretty effectively, betraying nothing more than a slight stiffening of posture. Had Inara not known her subject, she might have missed the signs. "Seen worse."

_Yes, she probably had. Back in the war, doubtless, when Zoe and Mal…__该死__gāisǐ__. Together. How long had Zoe and Mal been together? They went through the war together, the internment camp together; they lived together in the slums of Hera before Mal found Serenity, and they had lived together on the ship ever since. When had Mal and Zoe _not_ been together?_

"During the war, of course," Zoe said, as if she had divined the direction of Inara's thoughts. "Kinda alters your perspective." She paused, as if deciding how much to say. "We been in some tight spots since, but honestly, nothin' else comes close. Even when we were living together in the slums of Hera, after the war, homeless and starving and nothin' but the shirts on our backs, it wasn't so bad. Weren't nobody shootin' at us, and we had each other."

_该死__Gāisǐ__!_ Only Zoe could make a speech like that turn like a knife in Inara's chest. Just how much togetherness had that "living together" on Hera entailed? How many times had they "had each other"? Conversation with Zoe was an improvement over conversation with Saffron, but not by much.

"Inara," Zoe continued, despite the strong emotion betrayed in Inara's eyes, "I know you don't want to talk about this, but I'm asking you to listen. You and Mal…well, it's done him a world of good."

Inara was furious. Yes, she could see that Zoe might just appreciate the lessons she'd been teaching Mal. Some women scheduled appointments for their husbands with Registered Companions, requesting that particular attention be paid to refining technique, and they enjoyed the benefits of improved performance afterwards.

"You didn't know him back then, before Serenity Valley. He was…well, he was still Mal, but not nearly so dark. Same jackass sense of humor, tinted much brighter."

_I didn't know him back then. Of course. And _you_ did._ Inara concealed her huffing under a motionless neutral mask.

"He had the good looks, the charm, the sense of humor—weren't no wonder all the women in the unit—some of the men, too—looked at him like he could walk on water."

Inara was seething. "And you, Zoe?" she managed to say, in a tone of voice that was a reasonable facsimile of pleasant.

Zoe snorted. "I had reason enough to know he was a mortal man."

_他妈的 __Tāmādē! I bet you did._

"He made no secret of the fact that he had a steady girlfriend back home on Shadow."

_他妈的 __Tāmādē! So not only does he betray my trust now—he's also done it before, with that poor girl from Shadow._

"Didn't make him any less attractive," Zoe added with a smile. "Some thought that made him all the more desirable."

Inara found it increasingly difficult to avoid expressing her ill temper. She swallowed her growl of animosity with her tea.

"I know he asked you, on Bandiagara, to marry him."

Inara wasn't sure what angered her more—that Mal would tell Zoe about the proposal, or that Zoe would bring it up to her, in such circumstances. "Zoe, I don't want to talk about—"

"Hear me out, Inara," Zoe interrupted. "I reckon he bungled it; in fact, knowing him—and I _do—_I'd say it's a dead certainty. Took you unawares is my guess."

"That's enough, Zoe."

"But don't hold it against him. He's doin' the best he knows how."

"I really don't—"

"I told you this before, Inara. He _listens_ to you. He pays attention to what you do and say. _You're_ the one can influence him."

_And he betrays me anyway,_ Inara reflected bitterly, as she set the teacup on the table with a little more force than was necessary. "What do you want?" she asked bluntly.

"I want you and Mal to pull together. It's the only way we'll get the better of that 賤貨 的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù."

"You want me to forgive Mal and cooperate in counteracting Saffron's purpose."

"That's correct."

_哎呀__Āiyā__ again. If that wasn't the whole dilemma. _Maintaining her distance from Mal meant playing into the hands of Saffron. It was what River had been trying to tell her—Saffron used the divisions among Serenity's crew to her advantage. She kept them from "pulling together," as Zoe put it, and with each pulling alone and in different directions, they were weaker. An elder statesman of Earth-that-was had once put it succinctly: _"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."_ For the sake of her Serenity family—not just for Mal—certainly not for Zoe—Inara would do it. "Alright."

Zoe smiled. "And Inara—he ain't done what you think he's done. He—"

Inara cut her off. "Just one question, Zoe."

Zoe raised her eyebrows.

"Do you love him?"

"Of course," Zoe answered, adding with her look, _I love him like a brother._

Inara had already turned away.

. . .

Simon's examination had convinced him that Saffron's injuries were nothing serious, but her behavior at the dinner table had him concerned, and he began to wonder if he had missed something. As a conscientious physician, he went to her room to check on her recovery. He discovered that she was no longer in her room. He immediately called up to the bridge to let the others know that Saffron was on the loose, then went in search of her. He didn't have far to go. As he entered the cargo bay, he saw her standing next to one of the crates, examining it closely.

"Going to see a man about a horse?" he asked, aggressively.

To his astonishment, she fell down in a swoon. He automatically ran over to provide medical assistance as needed, although by now, he strongly suspected that "dramatics" and "malingering" were her primary afflictions—along with sociopathy.

"What's wrong?" Kaylee asked, looking down from the catwalk. Others of the crew gathered as Simon proceeded to check Saffron's pulse and other vital signs.

Simon found nothing medically wrong. As far as he could tell, Saffron's fainting spell was neither more nor less than a technique to avoid being questioned about what kind of plot she was hatching in the cargo bay when she was discovered.

"As far as I can tell, she's developed a case of Plot," he deadpanned.

. . .

"Well, I ain't assigning Ip to guard Yo-Saff-Bridge," Mal explained. "It's clear as daylight she'd play him like a piano."

Ip looked offended at the implication that he was weaker, more vulnerable, not to be trusted. The Captain wasn't aware of the stunt he'd pulled at River's suggestion. He was about to open his mouth to explain when the Captain cut him off.

"And it ain't 'cause I think you're weak, Ip," Mal continued, correctly interpreting the young scientist's expression. Mal wasn't about to reveal his real reason. He didn't completely trust Ip. The fellow was eager to be liked and trusted, and his actions and behavior generally engendered trust, but still there were things that made Mal uneasy. Not only the recent "Blue-Hand-operative-is-my-friend" incident, but also Ip's correspondence with a mysterious Buddhist monk whose voice was unsettlingly familiar. Not to mention Ip's complete lack of discretion in the talking department and his propensity for asking uncomfortable questions about things as weren't any of his gorram business. He had noticed that River and Ip seemed to be working as a team, but as far as he was concerned, that was just another cause for uneasiness, because Ip didn't seem to know what his intentions were regarding that girl. River was effective at countering Saffron's moves, though he couldn't say how she managed it, since she'd been nuttier than a squirrel ever since the attack on Beaumonde. Had it not been for the fact that piloting seemed to settle her more than anything else and they absolutely needed the manpower with Zoe injured, Mal would have temporarily relieved her of piloting duties. "That evil snake could make a solid stone bend to her will with that forked tongue a' hers," Mal asserted to the entire crew and to Ip in particular. "She's done played every one of us, and good. And that's after—"

"Except me," River interrupted.

"Except River," Mal allowed.

"And me as well," Simon asserted.

Ip opened his mouth and drew breath, but Mal pre-empted him, reasserting his position as the speaker who had the floor. Nodding to Simon in acknowledgement, he continued, "And that's after taking the precaution of locking her up, and knowing she was gonna try to play us. The woman is an evil, treacherous snake, and the only way I see is to limit her opportunities. Now on she eats in her room. Guard stays outside the door, only slides the food in, does not enter. Yo-Saff-Bridge is only allowed out for visits to the head, and if she abuses that privilege, she gets to use a chamber pot. And River, seein' as you're the only one she ain't been able to get to, I'm hopin' you'll be extra vigilant."

. . .

Saffron waited until late at night, and all was quiet. Using the coded door opener she had lifted from Jayne, she unlocked the door to her room and silently slid it open. She had picked her way stealthily down the hall in the passenger dorm when suddenly River's door slid open and River herself jumped out in Saffron's way.

"Uh-uh-uh!" River scolded, shaking her head.

Saffron turned about and raced back to her room, shutting the door and locking herself in.

. . .

Needless to say, they investigated. Again. Turned her entire room upside down. Found one cache of thoroughly disconcerting devices, most of which had the look of something designed by the props department for a cortex drama about super secret agent spies, but Saffron wouldn't tell about them of course. Her denial ("I have no idea what those things are. Don't these Fireflies have lots of smuggling nooks and crannies? I suppose this is something you folks left stashed there.") was completely unconvincing, but she stuck to her line.

Mal was getting mighty frustrated, having asked Saffron more than a few times by now, how she ended up in the chicken crate, and why she stowed aboard his ship. "Can't believe this was just a random happenstance. Or that you thought for an instant that a chicken crate was a fine place for a nap, and got put here against your will. Who packed you in that crate? Who are you working for?" Mal's questions were all met with defiant silence. He was getting mighty weary of it. It occurred to him to wonder again what kind of stuff was packed along with Saffron when she stowed aboard. This thought triggered another investigation of the chicken crates. The search revealed a concealed compartment in one of the crates, and two contraband devices were extracted from it.

Mal was left with some very disturbing thoughts. Each time they searched, they seemed to turn up another item or two. He did not believe they had found it all. So, how many items had they missed? How many devices had Saffron already deployed, and what were they going to do to his ship when he failed to find them?

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

谢谢你 Xièxie nǐ [Thank you]

_该死__Gāisǐ_ _[Damn it]_

_该死__gāisǐ_ _[damn]_

_该死__Gāisǐ_ _[Damn it!]_

_他妈的 __Tāmādē [Goddammit]_

賤貨 的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù [cheap floozy]

_哎呀 __Āiyā [Damn]_

* * *

_A/N: The "case of Plot" is a reference to a story called "Generic S/K Plot Outline" by ManicGiraffe. In my opinion, it's a prime candidate for the title of "Funniest Firefly Fanfic Ever." You can find it at _www. fireflyfans bluesun . aspx ? bid = 12554_ (remove spaces) if you're interested. In the meantime, I'd be delighted to hear from you. Leave a comment or a review. :-)_


	28. Chapter 28

What Begins with an Apple, Part 14b

_Apples and horses._

* * *

"Should just turn her in, Cap." Jayne spoke up at the next mealtime. "That'd get her out of our hair. There's gotta be a re-ward."

"There is," Zoe confirmed. "But that's—"

"River and I saw it," Ip contributed eagerly, "when we were on Beaumonde. She's on the Most Wanted list—I saw her picture. She broke out of a prison."

No one seemed the least bit surprised at Ip's news.

"Ip's correct," Zoe confirmed. "There's a warrant out on her for her escape from Pegasus Prison. Seems she seduced a guard and knocked out a few others, stole a ship, and generally trashed the whole prison security system. Substantial reward money involved."

"See? What'd I say?" Jayne nodded with satisfaction. "She still ain't served her time for that Trash dumpster job on Bellerophon. Turnin' her in's the right thing to do. Easy money."

"You have got to be kidding." Mal finally broke his silence, and turned his look upon Jayne. "Turn her in to the_ Feds?"_

"Well, yeah, uh…" Jayne was rapidly losing enthusiasm for the idea under the Captain's steady glare.

"Why not? Is she also wanted by local authorities?" Ip asked, missing the point entirely.

"Zoe?" the Captain queried, ignoring Ip. _You're not seriously suggesting that we go to the _Feds_…voluntarily seek the attention of the Alliance's __家丁__jiādīng__…_

"Of course not, sir," Zoe replied. "Simply stating the facts. Saw her warrant when I was checking…" _for others. Still no warrants out on either of us for that ambush incident._

_I mighta killed that__混蛋__húndàn_ _who shot you._

_Either you didn't kill the fellow, or his friends decided to cover it up. Didn't file no incident report with the police._

Mal nodded. "River and Ip?"

Ip looked up at his name, but didn't understand what the Captain was asking. He opened his mouth to speak, but River stepped on his foot, so he closed it again. The Captain had locked eyes with the first mate, and some kind of unspoken communication was going on between them.

_None for River or Ip—Blue Hands business is bein' kept strictly undercover, sir._

_Ip's gorram 'friend' Bill's kept his word, then—so far. _"Simon?"

_Nothin'._

Mal nodded. "We're good then. Nothin' to be done 'til we get to Hektor, and can get her off my gorram ship."

. . .

"Trying to spin us about."

Mal looked over at River, as she sat in the co-pilot seat. He'd been thinking as much, himself. Truth to tell, he hadn't really been that surprised that Saffron had discomfited every member of the crew. She'd used her wiles—and of them, she had a goodly store—to sow discord throughout the ship. Not a one of the crew as hadn't been messed about by that evil snake. The real question was why.

"Eris."

"Who's an heiress, Albatross?"

"Eris, not heiress," River corrected. "Goddess of discord."

"Have to agree with you there, Albatross," Mal nodded. "She's a fair contender for the title."

"Throws the golden apple in amongst them, starts a war."

"She ain't started no war. Not that I'm aware of. Leastaways, not yet."

"Ends with a horse."

"I'm not following you there, Albatross."

"What begins with an apple, must end with a horse," River insisted.

"You done said that about twenty times, darlin'—"

"Eight."

_Gorrammit, the girl was a stickler for accuracy._ "Plenty of times, sweetheart. I still don't conjure what you mean by it." He had borrowed Simon's Universal Encyclopedia and looked it up. It was the oracle at Delphi who said the bit about the apple and the horse, back in ancient times on Earth-that-was. (Apparently nobody back then could make head nor tail of the oracle's pronouncement neither.) Seemed that a disagreement over an apple had precipitated the Trojan War. (How an apple could start a war was beyond Mal. Just didn't seem like something worth fightin' for.) The armies fought to a stalemate, but the war went on, and folk kept on dying (some things about warfare didn't _never_ change) until one fella on the Greek side figured out a way to trick the other side into losing. That was where the horse come in. It was a wooden horse, with some folk hid inside it. They got into the city of Troy that way, and opened the gate. The attackers sacked the city and razed it to the ground, destroying every gorram thing. End of siege, end of story. And while that was an informative bit of ancient history, Mal did not see how it applied to the situation aboard his ship.

"What begins with an _apple—_"

"And just why do you think repeatin' it is gonna cause some revelation in my mind?" he interrupted, exasperated. "Unless you got some new information to offer, why don't you just drop it?"

River gave him an offended look, and left the bridge.

Mal sighed after her retreating form. What the 地狱 dìyù did that girl mean? _What begins with an apple…must end with a horse._ Couldn't make head nor tail of it. And what was all this 廢話 fèihuà about the goddess of discord and starting a war?

Saffron (_the evil snake_, he automatically added) hadn't exactly started a war, but she'd got the whole crew tossed about and at odds. Turned Zoe furious with murderous rage. Turned _Inara_ furious with murderous rage—and wasn't that was a sight to see, because he'd never before seen her so angry with anybody but himself. Turned Kaylee…well, she weren't exactly furious with murderous rage, but honestly, he'd never seen Kaylee so unlike her sunny self. And Kaylee sure weren't acting like a happy woman who'd just been proposed to by the man she loved. Mal had seen that she was wearing Simon's ring, but she hadn't announced their engagement to the crew, which struck Mal as very odd and just not like Kaylee. And she walked about lookin' as if she was like to cry for a nothing. Simon wasn't acting like a happy man whose marriage proposal had been accepted, neither. His cold, snarky shield was back in place—Mal guessed to defend himself against Saffron, but it held against everyone else as well. Jayne wouldn't talk about how Saffron got the drop on him, Ip was withdrawn and aloof, and River was acting a good bit crazier than usual. And as for himself…Mal knew Saffron had spun him about pretty badly. Not just by playing him directly, but playin' him through every one of his crew. He didn't know what the treacherous snake had planned, but he could guess that she was waiting until everyone was seriously off-balance before striking the fatal blow. _What begins with an apple must end with a horse_…now what the 地狱 dìyù did that mean?

All this talk of apples had made him hungry, so he checked the course and settings, engaged the autopilot, and headed to the dining room.

. . .

River was sitting at the table, gazing sadly at the bowl of apples in the center of it. Mal sat down opposite her.

"Sorry I sniped at you, River," he said. "Weren't no call for that. Taking my frustrations out on you, I reckon. Shouldn'ta made you a target."

"Eris," River replied softly, looking at him with sad eyes.

"Eris," he repeated. "Goddess of discord done a number on us. Got me snarking at my pilot, when I know you're tryin' to be helpful. Not your fault I'm too dim to get what you're talkin' about." He knew that River's cryptic remarks frequently contained kernels of sense. And it really weren't her fault that she wasn't able to speak more plainly. He had a notion that when she talked all metaphorical like that, oftentimes she didn't know herownself quite what she meant. She just had a hunch, an instinct. She needed to puzzle out the meaning just as much as anybody else did. And oftentimes, if a body would just sit still and listen and work at it with her, 'stead of jumpin' down her throat and callin' her crazy, the meaning became clearer. He picked an apple from the bowl in the center of the table and began cutting it into slices.

"Golden apples of the sun."

He cocked his head at her. "These the golden apples of the sun?" he queried, hefting the apple.

She nodded.

"The apples what started the war you're talkin' about?"

Again she nodded.

"And ended with a horse."

More nodding.

"I still don't get it." He shook his head slightly, munching on an apple slice. "Still, I hafta say, it's not often that we have such a fine selection of fruit on this boat. First, all them pineapples and mangos from Bandiagara, now Jayne's crate of apples—"

"_Not_ Jayne's."

"Whaddya mean, not Jayne's? Jayne bought 'em, didn't he?"

She shook her head. "He thinks _you_ bought them."

Mal stared at her. "An' I think _he_ bought them." Wheels were whirring in his brain. "Who the good gorram bought them, then?"

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

_家丁__jiādīng_ _[servants, household retainers]_

_混蛋 __húndàn [bastard]_

地狱 dìyù [hell]

廢話 fèihuà [nonsense]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

* * *

_Okay, things are starting to come together. Will they figure out what Saffron is up to in time? Your thoughts and speculations (and reviews) are welcome._


	29. Chapter 29

What Begins with an Apple, Part 15a

_More apples and horses. And chickens, too._

. . .

She saw that Mal and that girl were talking in the dining room. Good. Let them keep each other engaged. Between them, they were her most formidable obstacles—the Captain because he was so suspicious of her and because he alone had the ability to unite the crew against her, and River because—well, she didn't know why, or how, but that girl seemed to have preternatural knowledge of her plans and plots and schemes, and had foiled most of them so far. With the two of them distracting each other, she just might succeed in this endeavor. She planted the decoy trouble-maker, then proceeded with her main project.

And with the second part of her plan in action, it was just possible they might not even look for the first. They might never know she'd been here. 'Til it was too late.

. . .

"Eris."

Mal just about choked on his apple. "_Saffron_ bought 'em?! How—? What—?"

"Sowing discord."

"Well, we _know_ she's tryin' to take us down somehow, some way. But there ain't been no discord over the apples. Everybody's just been eatin' 'em. So why would Saffron give us apples?"

"A diversion?" River suggested.

"Mayhap they're poisoned." Mal set the unsliced portion of his apple down on the table and felt his stomach give a lurch.

"Not poisoned."

"Or might be grenades in 'em." _Dead of winter. Holding the line. Cold and starving. No ammo to speak of. And some apples rained down into the trench, like a gift from heaven…._

"Pretty apples. Pop."

_Pop, pop, pop._

Blinking, he returned from his sojourn to find that he was still sitting at Serenity's dining table with an apple in front of him. His heart was racing. River was looking curiously at him, and he wondered how long he'd just spent re-living the winter campaign in New Kasmir. He took a deep breath. "Zoe already told you that story, didn't she?" he asked, clearing the thickness from his throat. She nodded. Images flooded his mind, thankfully just memories this time. Those apples were rigged with Grizwalds, pressure-sensitive grenades. Three soft little pops, and Bhukkanasut, Yang, and Ballou were missing their heads. "Three of my soldiers took a bite of them apples, afore I could stop 'em…" He trailed off, and regarded the apple before him with a grim expression.

"No grenades. But still explosive."

Mal shook off the memories. "You mean explosive…as in…cause a ruckus. Stir up trouble." Now they were gettin' somewhere with this "Starts with an apple" business. He hoped River would stay focused for long enough for him to tease out her meaning. "Mayhap Saffron's wanting us to worry about these here apples, as a distraction—to add to the chaos."

"Eris threw the apple of discord into the gathering of the gods. Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei_. Started a war."

"Whoa, wait a minute there, River. 'Callisto'?"

"Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei. _For the fairest," she translated.

"An apple for the fairest? Okay. So…who's the fairest?"

"There were three contenders. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite."

Mal nodded. "So, how'd they decide? Draw straws? Secret ballot? Rock, paper, scissors?" It was crazy, but hey, when River talked liked this, it was best to try to play along and follow as best he could.

She smiled at his suggestions, then corrected, "Went to Paris."

"Paris? What does Paris got to do with this, Albatross?" Mal was baffled. "You mean the city on Londinium, or the one-horse settlement on Three Hills?" he queried.

"Paris was his _name_," River pronounced, rolling her eyes. The Captain could be _so_ dense sometimes. "The judgment of Paris." The Captain was still looking a little lost, so she elaborated. "It was a man _named_ Paris. They asked him to decide. He chose the winner."

"Ah. Got ya," Mal replied. "Okay, so this Paris fella, he looks at the three gals—"

"Goddesses."

"—the three goddesses. Whatever," he corrected, inwardly rolling his eyes.

_Don't make faces, Captain._

"And decides which one of 'em is the best-lookin', and gives her the apple. Right?"

"No. He decides which one of them offered him the best bribe, and gives _her_ the apple."

_Figures_, Mal thought. _Always knew them judges were corrupt._ "So what'd they offer as bribes?"

River ticked them off on her fingers. "Power. Knowledge. Or the love of the most beautiful woman in the 'Verse."

Mal snorted. "So he chose the woman."

"How'd you know?" she exclaimed, suddenly all girl.

"I'm a man. As you may have noticed."

"Men." She rolled her eyes.

"Don't give me that," he shot back. "The love of a beautiful woman is something to be cherished."

"She was married."

"Well now. That has an affect on the landscape. So that fella Paris, he got the girl, but I reckon her husband weren't none too pleased with the arrangement."

"Started a war."

"Seems a bit over-the-top."

"Men have fought over woman's love for millennia."

He had no reply. He'd fought a duel with Atherton Wing—with swords, no less—over Inara.

"Her face could launch a thousand ships," River intoned.

"A thousand ships," he echoed, pulling himself away from thoughts of Inara. "So the husband had a few friends."

"_A lot_ of friends. Started the Trojan War."

"So it all started with an apple." He looked at River. "That was an interesting history lesson, Albatross, but I still ain't sure what it has to do with the here and now." He picked up the apple before him, and sliced up a few more pieces.

"What begins with an apple—"

"Must end with a horse," he finished. "Just one problem. There ain't no horses in space."

"Pegasus." Her counter-example came immediately.

"Alright, I'll grant you the constellation Pegasus." He ate another apple slice. "You know," he said challengingly, "there's them as think horses and spaceships don't go together nohow."

"風馬牛不相及 Fēng mǎ niú bù xiāng jí."

"So they say. But I got some fair compelling evidence says that ships and horses got a long and venerable history together."

River's eyes grew bright in anticipation of a good story.

"These days, we got packets of protein in all the colors of the rainbow. But back in the old days, on Earth-That-Was, they got their shipboard protein from salt-preserved meat. Used ta call it 'salt horse.'"

River's eyes sparkled. She loved it when he told tales of the days of the wooden sailing ships on Earth-That-Was. The ancient mariners' map (or rather, the budget reproduction ancient mariners' map) that he had pinned on the wall in his quarters was just the tip of the iceberg. He had a deep and abiding love for the subject, and he must have studied it or read up on it somehow. He loved ships.

"Now, it's all a matter of conjecture, just how often that was actually true," he continued. "It was supposed to be salt beef or salt pork, but I reckon they called it salt horse for a reason. The sailors even had a rhyme about it." River encouraged him with a look, so he recited,

_Old Horse, Old Horse, what brought you here?  
"I carted stone for many a year.  
Worn out at last by sore abuse,  
They salt me down for sailors' use.  
The sailors they do me despise.  
They kick my body and damn my eyes,  
Cut my meat and pick my bones,  
And throw the rest to Davy Jones."_

River nodded with enthusiasm, absorbing the words with a big grin. Her magpie mind was always collecting shiny little tidbits like that. "Horses and ships. Birds of a feather. But that is a horse of a different feather."

"You're talkin' horse feathers, River?" She might be crazy, but, good gorram, this girl was witty. "Horsefeathers," he creaked, trying to keep his sides from splitting.

"Horses were bad. Bad in the Latin. Horse: bad. Bad horse." She started singing.

_Bad Horse!  
Bad Horse!  
Bad Horse!  
He rides across the nation,  
The thoroughbred of sin.  
He got the application  
That you just sent in.  
It needs evaluation,  
So let the games begin.  
heinous crime, a show of force,  
murder would be nice, of course.  
Bad Horse!  
Bad Horse!  
Bad Horse!_

"What in the 'Verse is that 废话 fèihuà, River?" Mal exclaimed. "It's horrible!"

"Bingo!" she exclaimed gleefully, adding, "That's _Doctor_ Horrible to you, Captain."

Mal shook his head, but he was still smiling. "What am I doin' trading rhymes and songs with you, River, at a time like this?"

"Horse-trading," she fired back, instantly.

A great snorting guffaw burst from him. "Sometimes I just don't understand a word you're sayin', River," he said, when he could speak again. He wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Likes to play games."

"I know you like to play games, darlin'."

"_She_ likes to play games."

"You mean Saffron."

River nodded.

"So what kind of game is she playin'?"

"Playing chicken."

"Playing chicken?" Mal repeated, not exactly understanding. Did she mean, who would flinch first?

"In ancient Zambia, on Earth-that-was, 'chicken' meant a woman of loose morals," River explained wisely.

Mal nodded. Saffron fit that description, easy. Her morals was loose as eggs in a nest.

"So a man who had sex with a chicken—" River continued.

"I get that part," Mal interrupted. "So why's she playin' chicken?"

"That is the question, my dear, that is the question."

"Yeah, it sure as 狗屎 gǒushǐ is," Mal replied, looking a little queasily at his apple.

"These apples are good and healthsome," River remarked, taking a large bite.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

Καλλίστῃ_ Kallistei [To the fairest (Greek)]_

風馬牛不相及 Fēng mǎ niú bù xiāng jí [Two things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other (lit. "a horse and cow in heat do not look to each other") (Chinese idiom)]

废话 fèihuà [nonsense]

狗屎 gǒushǐ [crap]

* * *

_Thanks to Bytemite, whose story "Winter Campaign" inspired the part of this chapter where Mal has his flashback to the winter campaign in New Kasmir. Also, not sure how the formatting will come out with the verses. Options are limited here on ff dot net and I never quite know if what I have in my document will come out looking the way I want it to. Reviews would be good and healthsome._


	30. Chapter 30

What Begins with an Apple, Part 15b

_Mal finds a chicken in his bunk._

* * *

Mal dropped down the ladder into his bunk and reached up to unbutton his shirt in preparation for bed. He glanced over at it, and—

"Gah!"

"I made the bed warm for you, hubby." Saffron lay in his bed, propped up on her elbows, the sheets tucked up below her bare shoulders.

Mal's first move was to pull his gun. "爆炸性的腹泻大象 Bàozhàxìng de fùxiè dàxiàng! You're gonna want to pull your paws out from under cover there, nice and slow." At her slight hesitation, he ordered, "Do it _now_." She raised her hands. Without taking his eyes off her, he edged over and hit the comm.

"You're so sweet, so kind and beautiful, husband."

"I ain't your husband," he snarled.

"_Sir?!"_ Zoe's surprised voice came through the comm in response to his unexpected words.

"Need you and Jayne to report to crew hallway, armed," Mal told Zoe. "Got an incident in my bunk."

"An 'incident,' sir?" Zoe queried. "That what you're callin' her now? This 'incident' don't happen to be in your bed, do she?"

Mal didn't dignify Zoe's remark with a response. "Now get outta my bed." He gestured at Saffron with his gun.

"As you wish," she said, and stood up, revealing—whoah!—flesh.

Mal quickly averted his eyes. Well, averted them as much as was humanly possible, while keeping strict watch to be sure she didn't try something on. He forced himself to ignore the expanse of naked flesh thus exposed to him and focus on the why. _Why_ was she in his bunk? He didn't think for a second that it was just on account of she desired to taste of his physical charms. Could she possibly be looking for the timonium? Mal had a goodly quantity of it concealed in his bunk. It wasn't the only place he'd stowed it—he certainly hadn't put all his eggs in one basket—but the most significant cache was right here. Careful not to let his eyes stray in the direction of the hiding place—or _anywhere_ away from her eyes—he confronted Saffron.

"What are you doing here?"

"I took a rain-check on our wedding night, remember?"

"Oh, I remember alright," he replied, uncompromising. "Where are your gorram clothes?"

"Mal, peaches, I just can't keep away from you. You really _can_ miss a place you've never been, if the attraction's strong enough. I want to be as the furrow to your plough, the…"

While she was nattering on with the seductive talk, Mal shook out her pile of clothing and searched the pockets and seams, but he had other things on his mind. He'd had a nagging worry in his mind ever since he woke from that deep sleep after the Helluva Day (as he'd come to call it in his mind) on Beaumonde. That was when he discovered that he couldn't find the card on which Buck Holden had written the contact information for the timonium fence. Buck had told him in no uncertain terms to memorize the info and destroy the card. Well, he'd completed step one, but a lost card wasn't near as gone as a destroyed card. Coulda been lost anywhere. On the ship. On the street. In the dockyard. And since the card was lost, Mal had to consider the contact compromised. He hoped like hell that it hadn't fallen into the hands of Saffron. She had a talent for sneaking about. And of course there was also the secret cargo, concealed somewhere within the shipment from Holden Brothers that filled the cargo bay. She couldn't know about that, could she? Could she have anything to do with Holden's mole?

And meanwhile he had to deal with Saffron, all naked and articulate, in his bunk. Oh, right. He'd been so preoccupied with his thoughts that it hadn't even occurred to him to get embarrassed as his hands had searched Saffron's undergarments for hidden contraband.

"…to his fall, and rest him then upon the sweat of her breast."

"Uh-huh. And that still don't explain what you think you're doin', sneakin' about in my bunk. You're supposed to be locked in your room. Now get your clothes back on. And that quote ain't from the bible, neither." He tossed the pile of clothing at her, retaining the electronic filament strip he'd detected in the waistband of her underwear. He cocked his gun to emphasize the point. "Zoe," he called up the ladder, "y'all in place?"

He forced himself to ignore her seductive writhes as she wiggled into her clothes. It was too important that he remain focused on the key elements. Had to make sure that she didn't try something on. Had to make sure that she didn't try to conceal anything within those clothes of hers. He had all manner of dangerous and compromising things concealed within this bunk of his, and Saffron was the last person he wanted to have a hold of any of 'em.

"Up the ladder, chicken," he commanded, his pistol unwavering in its aim. He'd heard Zoe's limping footsteps and Jayne's stomping and knew they were in position.

Saffron pouted, but started climbing. Mal watched from a decent distance, holding his aim steady, as she clung to the rungs and pushed herself up from the legs and hips, climbing like a girl.

. . .

She hadn't succeeded in all her aims, but on the whole, the excursion was a successful one. She'd come and gone undetected on the bridge, getting safely away just in time, before the Captain returned to resume his watch. As soon as she entered the Captain's quarters, she'd done a thorough search. She had found something quite interesting and left him a gift, before settling down with his personal cortex screen to work the next stage of her magic. She'd been disrupted in the midst of the process, however, as the man of the hour returned and she'd switched to playing seduction. It wasn't often that she conducted an operation in the nude, but she had to have her—ahem—_cover_ ready in case her presence was, er, _exposed_.

He'd returned to the bunk much sooner than she'd imagined he would. Based on her knowledge of his sleep habits from her prior visits, he should have stayed out wandering the corridors of his ship for another half hour at the very least. Still, it gave her a chance to play the seduction games, which was good fun.

Only this time he seemed strangely immune. She chalked it up to the Companion. Maybe he'd been getting laid regularly enough that the seduction games didn't have the same pull as when it had been _a long damn while since anybody took a hold a' his plough_, as he so quaintly put it. Still, it was odd. He and the Companion were presently estranged—sure, they were lovers, but they had quarreled, even before she came aboard. And she'd scuttled any chance for reconciliation they might have had. That project was going _very_ well. A few more wedges to insert, and she could rest assured that she'd parted them for good, mission accomplished.

Saffron smiled. The critical elements of the mission were falling very nicely into place, one by one, two by two. Messing up Mal Reynolds's love life was a personal mission, not strictly in the line of business, but Saffron had never been averse to mixing business and pleasure. There remained a few more tasks to complete before the ship reached Hektor and Saffron and the chickens parted ways with Serenity, but for tonight she could rest easy.

Or could she? 牛屎 Niú shǐ! Saffron realized that she had left something critical behind in the Captain's bunk. A quick check confirmed the loss. 牛屎 Niú shǐ. When he returned to his bunk so suddenly, she'd been startled. She'd jumped under his covers, and she'd not had time to replace the thing in its hiding place. Then he pointed a gun at her and demanded to see her hands, and she'd stupidly left the thing under the bedcovers. She'd already replaced the memory stick in the small capsule, after completing the work on the bridge, but the code…the activation code…_牛屎__niú shǐ__!_ She could only hope he wouldn't find it, and that he was too much of a 笨蛋 bèndàn to figure out what it was if he did.

. . .

Mal lay in his bunk that night, thinking over the encounter with Saffron—and grateful she weren't still there. Leastaways the rational part of his mind was grateful. Twig and berries weren't so grateful she was gone. Stupid twig and berries. He tore himself away from 騃 ái fantasies of wild rutting with an evil, treacherous snake woman. His thoughts jumped straight from that to Inara, and he felt a pain like a gut-punch as he realized how viscerally he missed making love to Inara. This was goin' nowhere. Gorram nowhere. He shifted his position on the mattress and applied himself to thinking over what had happened.

Mal's first move, after getting Saffron out of his bunk and into her room, had been to check his stashes of illicit and prohibited items and make a thorough inspection of his bunk. A quick inventory of his personal contraband collection confirmed that the bag of timonium crystals was still intact, his various hidden and illegal weapons were still ensconced in their places, the illegitimate account books, false ship's papers, fake ident card, and the wide variety of other shady and unauthorized items that he maintained were still concealed in the various nooks and crannies that abounded in the '03-Firefly. An unsuspicious mind would not have found much amiss, and might have missed the signs. His was not an unsuspicious mind, however, and he noted that most everything showed signs of having been disturbed. Saffron had searched his bunk very thoroughly.

Now it was Mal's turn to search his bunk very thoroughly, and he went through everything—the desk with its financial records and ship's log, the locker underneath the bed where he kept personal items, the drawers where he kept his clothes, even the hand towel and the roll of toilet paper hanging on their loops of rope—everything. What was Saffron looking for? He tried putting himself in her place, thinking like her—and it gave him a gorram headache. Had she gone through his financial records? Had she examined the ship's log and recorded their recent movements? Was she looking for personal information? Was she collecting evidence for some kind of sting operation? Had she taken something? Nothing appeared to be missing. Had she planted a bug? Knowing her propensity for installing time-delay screw-up devices everywhere she went, he kept his eyes peeled for foreign objects, but didn't find any. This was far from reassuring. It just meant he hadn't yet missed what she took, or discovered what she'd left behind. As he shook out the bedding and searched under the mattress, a small scrap of electronic paper fluttered to the floor. Unfolding it, he found it was covered with incomprehensible letters and figures. A code.

该死 Gāisǐ. What was the purpose of this code, and why had Saffron left it in his bed?

When he considered the series of events systematically, Mal was struck by a disturbing thought. He'd left his hatch _locked_. There were only two ways to open a locked hatch: with the pass code, or with an override from the bridge. Which meant Saffron had done one or the other. Had she broken his code? He never wrote it down and he hadn't told anybody the current code. Not even Zoe knew it. River didn't even know it yet, although he reckoned she could figure it out soon as she applied herself to the task. But that was River. He just couldn't see how Saffron coulda figured out his pass code.

But the notion of the bridge override was even more disturbing. It meant that Saffron had been on his bridge, that she'd accessed the ship's main computer, and hacked through the security wall. And if she'd done _that_, who was fool enough to think she'd limited her activities to overriding the lock on his hatch?

How had Saffron managed to get the drop on them so many times? She had found she could get the drop on almost any one of them, provided she worked them over in isolation. It was the standard predatory procedure of separating the quarry from the herd. And like a predator, she found out her quarries' weaknesses and exploited them.

And, 哦天啊 ò tiān ā, had Saffron found his weakness. His weakness was Inara. His relationship with her, or his non-relationship with her, or whatever the 地狱 dìyù it was that they had between them. As long as Inara kept him spinning in circles, distracting him, he'd end up in trouble. Find himself at the wrong end of a gun barrel, ambushed in broad daylight, turned upside down and set off balance on his own gorram ship.

Had he been able to view things objectively, Mal might have realized that every weakness had a complementary strength, the 阴 yīn to the 阳 yáng. Saffron aimed to keep him off balance. She had recognized that his relationship with Inara was a major source of confusion for him, and focused considerable attention on keeping him and Inara out of alignment. Saffron had good reason to fear the strength he would gain from a balanced relationship with Inara. She had put considerable effort into keeping the two of them parted, because had they worked together, they would have the power to defeat her purpose.

Mal tossed and turned in his bed, unsleeping, with disturbing thoughts churning in his head. Saffron hacking his bridge computer, Saffron searching his bunk, touching all his things, lying naked in his bed…该死 gāisǐ.

. . .

Saffron's mode of operation was becoming clearer to him, but her goal, her purpose, was still obscure. Mal had already realized, with River's help, that Saffron's technique was to throw everybody off-balance, playing some kind of shell game, spinning them about so no one knew which eggshell contained the chick. She'd keep them spinning until no one could guess at her true goal. She wanted to get everybody too upset with themselves and each other to notice what she was really up to.

So, which of her games were distractions, and which were her true business? He couldn't figure it out. He'd hazard a guess, though, that the apples—which didn't seem to be poisoned, and which didn't appear to have Grizwalds in 'em neither—were just a red herring. No one seemed to know how they'd come aboard, and while they were figuring it out, Saffron was already busy with her plot. Between the apples and the chickens, their attention would be focused on unimportant things while Saffron did something else, somewhere else. He was willing to lay money on it. _What begins with an apple must end with a horse. _It was clear enough what the apples were. They were the distraction. But what was the gorram horse?

Time to come up with a plan.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

爆炸性的腹泻大象 Bàozhàxìng de fùxiè dàxiàng [Explosive diarrhea of an elephant]

牛屎 Niú shǐ [Shit]

笨蛋 bèndàn [dumb fool (lit., "dumb egg")]

騃 ái [idiotic]

哦天啊 ò tiān ā [god]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

阴 yīn [yin]

阳 yáng [yang]

* * *

_Your thoughts on chickens, or Saffron, or anything else related to this story? Hit that shiny review button!_


	31. Chapter 31

What Begins with an Apple, Part 16a

_Mal tries out Plan A._

* * *

"Saffron is confined to quarters until we reach Hektor," Mal informed the crew the next morning. Predictably, several people opened their mouths to offer commentary, but Mal would have none of it. "We keep 24-hour guard outside her door. Jayne, Zoe, River, and I will divide up guard duty. This here's the duty roster." He slid a scrawl across the table towards his first mate.

"Captain, did you know that I—?" Ip began, while Simon objected even louder, "Because you have shown yourselves to be so very adept at managing that 不悔恨的 潑婦 bùhuǐhènde pōfù. And I don't think River's in a condition to—"

"闭嘴 Bìzuǐ. Did I ask for your comments? The way it is, is the way it is. She ain't allowed out for nothin'—not for meals, not for showers, not to use the head, not for nothin'."

"Mal! That's 惨无人道 cǎnwúréndào," Inara objected.

Mal turned on her. "I'm done bein' Mr Nice Guy."

"As if you ever were—! 你不是人 Nǐ bú shì rén," she muttered under her breath.

"We'll keep her supplied with food packets," he continued, ignoring Inara's huffings and grumblings. "She can make do with spongebaths for the next couple of days, and she's already been provided with a chamber pot."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Mal?" It was Jayne objecting this time.

Mal favored him with a glare. Jayne continued, undaunted. "'Cause someone's gonna hafta empty the pot."

"Why, that'd be you, Jayne," Mal answered with a wicked grin. "Any other 笨蛋 bèndàn questions?" he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he ploughed ahead. "I got jobs for everyone. Zoe, I want you and Jayne conductin' a full inventory of all the weapons and ammo we got aboard."

Jayne still hadn't learned. "This instead of the chicken-tending, Mal?"

"Nope. Chickens are still your responsibility, Jayne." Mal ignored Jayne's scowl and muttered cursings. "Kaylee, need you to run a full diagnostic in the engine room, and check over all your tools and make sure ain't none of 'em walked away nowhere."

"I'll assist Kaylee," Simon offered, but Mal turned on him.

"She don't need no more of your kind of help, seeing as you already got her—"

"Captain!" Simon interrupted, with angry menace in his tone.

"Don't you speak that way to me, boy, on my own ship," Mal returned hotly.

"Simon—Cap'n—please, stop it," Kaylee intervened with tears in her eyes. It was just like when Simon first came aboard and he and the Captain were always clashing. Or even worse, it was like when Inara left for the Training House and the Captain got into such a funk that it seemed like he wouldn't stop 'til he had driven them all off the ship, one by one. "Stop bein' so—"

"You got your own job to do, Simon," Mal interrupted, his tone in no way softened. "You're gonna be checking that everything in the infirmary is in order."

Simon bristled. "Captain, I _always _keep the infirmary in perfectly good order, thank you very much."

Mal ignored the interruption. "I want a complete inventory of every piece of equipment, all the medical and surgical supplies, every gorram bottle of medicine. Verify that nothing's missing." He turned to River, charging ahead with his agenda. "River, you and I are gonna run a system check on all the flight hardware and software. Zoe, you and I are gonna go through ship's stores, startin' with the lockers on the observation deck and workin' our way right back to the aft store room."

"Mal, I can help you," Inara stated, as Ip began, "Captain, what should I—?"

"You two," Mal snapped, "you look to your own gorram business and keep the hell outta the way of the rest of us what have real work to do."

Inara threw down her chopsticks, giving Mal an angry look as she swept out of the dining room.

Ip sat with his mouth open, ready to speak again, but Mal barreled on. "That's the way it is. Y'all got jobs to do, go do 'em. I don't pay you to sit around lookin' pretty."

"Half the time you don't pay us at all," Simon muttered.

"What was that?!" Mal challenged.

Zoe kept her opinion of this petty pissing contest to herself. Sometimes it was best not to speak. She avoided making eye contact with Mal. There was no point.

Simon rose from the table and stalked off toward the infirmary, his mutterings of "偏执的纠察员 Piānzhí de jiūchá yuán" only half-heard.

"Get to work." Mal's voice was hard and unrelenting.

Kaylee gave him a hurt and angry look as she left the room. "可怕的老暴君 Kěwù de lǎo bàojūn."

"Jayne," Zoe called in her corporal's voice. "First watch. Grab your weapon."

"You with us, River?" Mal inquired as his pilot arose with a miles-away look.

She suddenly snapped into focus. "Are _you?"_

Mal looked sharply at her, but she was already drifting off. Shrugging sourly, he trudged off to the bridge.

. . .

A few hours later, Mal was regretting his uncompromising outburst. Sure, he had stirred everybody into action, and they were going over every part of the ship in detail, but no one would talk to him, and the anger in the air was palpable. His foul mood had infected everybody aboard. And when he recalled River's words about how Saffron was sowing the seeds of discord, he realized that he'd been doing the evil snake's work for her.

It was time to come up with a Plan B.

He headed back to the engine room, where he found Kaylee's boots sticking out from under the engine block, as she examined some sub-system from below.

"Kaylee."

She didn't answer.

"Kaylee."

"I'm not speakin' to you, Cap'n."

"Well then, how's about you listen? Listen, Kaylee, I weren't…well, I was rude to you—"

"To _me?_" she objected, pulling out from under the machinery and sitting up. "How about to Simon? And Inara? And Ip? And Jayne, too, for that matter. You should oughtta—"

"I'm already apologizing, 懂吗 dǒng ma? Listen, fact is, I need your help."

"So far, things are lookin' okay," Kaylee said, misunderstanding his drift. "But you weren't wrong. This whole system needs checkin' out. Saffron got in this room, and I'm worried she done a number on the engine, somethin' we won't find out about until it's too late."

"You have any reason to think that evil snake done somethin' my engine?" Mal asked, more sharply than he was intending to speak.

"It's a near certainty," Kaylee answered.

"Thought you told me you stopped her at the door."

Kaylee snapped at him. "I did, Cap'n. Woulda knocked her down with my wrench if she'd taken another step in. But that don't mean she didn't get in while I wasn't lookin'."

"This engine room is your responsibility, Kaylee—"

"I know it, Cap'n. But I can't be watchin' 24-7. Gotta eat, gotta sleep, gotta go pee—"

"Kaylee—" he interrupted. This was more detail than he wanted to hear.

"—And when she keeps gettin' outta her room—"

"嘿 Hēi. We're tryin'. She's just—"

"Every time I turn around, she's out of her room, sneakin' around the ship again, Cap'n. And it wouldn't surprise me a bit if she's paid more 'n a couple a' visits to the engine room unbeknownst to me. So I'm checkin'. Okay? I'm tryin'. 'Cause when y'all can't do what it takes ta keep her in her room, she could come in here any time, an' I—"

"Hey, hey, whoa there, Kaylee."

"I can't fix every gorram thing, Cap'n. I can't guess what that 妓女 在 地獄 jìnǚ zài dìyù is gonna try next. Can't guarantee I'll be here with a wrench in my hand when she turns up next. So that's why I'm goin' through every gorram system, lookin' for—"

"Hey, Kaylee, whoa—"

"—Every gorram system, don't even know what I'm lookin' for, just—"

"Kaylee," Mal interrupted. "What's wrong?"

"Every gorram thing!"

"Tell me what's got you so upset," he continued.

She rolled her eyes. "Better off not speakin'. Got work to do." She started to pull herself back under the engine block.

"Kaylee, I need your sunshine."

"Don't got no more sunshine, Cap'n."

"Sure you do," he coaxed. "It's just your sunshine's all gone behind a big fat grey cloud. Cloud's name is Saffron. Besides," he continued, in a gently teasing voice, "you done an awful lot of talkin' for someone who ain't speakin' to me."

That made Kaylee smile a little, in spite of herself.

"I reckon now's the time when I oughtta make some kind of lame joke about chickens or apples or some such, make you smile some more."

"_All_ your jokes are pretty lame, Cap'n."

"Oh, come now, that's harsh," he answered, but he was smiling. Inspiration for Plan B had just struck him. "See?"

"What?"

"It's workin'."

Kaylee considered a moment, then answered slowly, "Yeah, Cap'n…it is, actually. I feel a little bit better, just for smilin'."

"Listen, Kaylee," Mal said. "May come a time when I need your sunshine to help me through this. I don't quite see the path yet, but I reckon I'll need you, _you_ in particular on this."

"Why, Cap'n?" she asked.

"Because you are the most naturally sunny person in the 'Verse," he answered. "Ain't no power in the 'Verse can stop you from bein' cheerful. Saffron's trying to make us all angry and upset, with ourselves and with everybody else. Divide and conquer. Oldest play in the book. United we stand. Divided we fall. And we don't want to fall, not to an evil snake—"

"妓女 在 地獄 Jìnǚ zài dìyù," Kaylee inserted.

"—an evil, treacherous snake like that," Mal concluded. "Don't quite see what to do about it yet, but when the time comes, Kaylee, will you back me?"

"Back you? How?"

"Back me by bringin' out the full force of your sunny personality, Kaylee. I don't quite know yet what I'm gonna do, or how, but when I tip you the signal—you lay it on thick with the sunshine, 懂吗 dǒng ma?"

"Yessir, Cap'n Tightpants."

Normally Mal would've hated to hear her call him that, but right now, it was the best sign in the world. Because it meant that she was recovering her humor, her natural joy—her sunshine. Things weren't fixed, not by a long shot. But not everything was broke.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

不悔恨的 潑婦 bùhuǐhènde pōfù [remorseless harridan]

闭嘴 Bìzuǐ [Shut up]

惨无人道 cǎnwúréndào [inhumane, brutal and unfeeling]

你不是人 Nǐ bú shì rén [You're not human]

笨蛋 bèndàn [dumb fool (lit., "dumb egg")]

偏执的纠察员 Piānzhí de jiūchá yuán [Stubborn disciplinarian]

可怕的老暴君 Kěwù de lǎo bàojūn [Horrible old tyrant]

懂吗 dǒng ma [understand]

嘿 Hēi [Hey]

妓女 在 地獄 jìnǚ zài dìyù [whore from hell]

妓女 在 地獄 Jìnǚ zài dìyù [Whore from hell]

懂吗 dǒng ma

* * *

_So much for Plan A! What do you think Plan B should be? I look forward to reading your comments._


	32. Chapter 32

What Begins with an Apple, Part 16b

_Mal tries Plan B. And then there are chickens. Feathers fly._

**Extreme Pun Warning**

* * *

"How the gorram hell she get out _again_?" Mal demanded.

Jayne held Saffron in an armlock. She struggled, wriggling against him. Jayne was clearly enjoying being struggled against, but he was careful to keep his mouth clear.

_That man has a one-track mind_, Mal thought. He looked at Zoe.

_Don't look at me, sir,_ Zoe answered his unspoken question and implied accusation. "I locked her in," Zoe defended herself.

"You see her get out?" Mal asked Ip and River, whose rooms were also in the passenger dorm.

"I was sleeping," Ip answered with a defensive air. "You told me to mind my own business and keep out of the way."

"I can't be everywhere!" River snapped. "I'm not omniscient!"

"Inara?"

"Let me at her, Mal, and I'll kill her!"

"Get in line, Inara," Zoe growled.

"Simon, you notice any…" _Hell, of course not_, Mal thought. Doc had been in high dudgeon, turning the infirmary inside out and generally crashing about, ever since the morning's conference, making more noise than a herd of elephants trundling through the corridor. Simon stared coldly back at him. _混蛋__Húndàn__._

Kaylee stood there with tears in her eyes, about to spill over. _Oh gorram hell, _Mal thought. Now the waterworks was starting.

"Everybody's so mad," Kaylee whispered.

"你們都閉嘴 Nǐmen dōu bìzuǐ!" Mal called. "一起 深 呼吸 Yī qǐ shēn hūxī." He forced himself to take a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. Now this here was just the sort of discord that Saffron (the evil snake) was tryin' to stir up. They were playin' right into her hand, he realized, as he caught Saffron's satisfied smirk. _This _was exactly what he'd predicted. This was the crisis. Saffron could see how completely she'd rattled them, and to judge by her expression, she was thoroughly enjoying the scene playing out before her. Instead of answering his very reasonable question, _how'd she get out_, everybody was snapping at each other, defensively _"not me"-ing_. Saffron's whole technique was to set them at odds with each other, so they wouldn't cooperate. They needed to pull together. United, they could beat Saffron, easy. It was time for Plan B.

Humor! Hadn't he seen how he and River had made the most progress figuring out what Saffron was up to, when they were trading horse-related banter? Humor—the crazier, the better. Hadn't they seen that Saffron couldn't deal nohow with River's crazy talk? Feeling like he'd just found the key to the city, Mal proceeded.

"Might as well take this opportunity—" Mal began, feeling that slightly 神经病shén jīng bìng thrill that generally accompanied the launch of one of his improvised Plan B's. He tipped Kaylee the signal. Kaylee gaped back at him, not yet understanding, but he continued, trusting that she'd back him shortly. "—Everyone being here, and Saffron having somehow got herself outta her chicken run. We need to have a serious talk, a _really serious_ talk—" he paused dramatically, and winked at Kaylee "—about chickens." It worked! She stopped crying, stared a moment, and winked back. "And speaking of chickens, I want to inform you all about an incident in my bunk…" Mal began. He noticed that River tuned in to his plan, the moment he alluded to Saffron being a chicken in his bunk_. Two on board._

"It was a little nocturnal encounter in my husband's bunk," inserted Saffron, unaware of the peculiar form of craziness that had just infected Serenity's crew. She gave Inara a knowing smile, one that implied all sorts of naughtiness. The Companion looked stonily back at her with unruffled features.

"She snuck into my bunk while I wasn't there," Mal said, not rising to Saffron's bait. "Reckon she took a look around. Probably took some other stuff while she was at it. An' I don't doubt she laid a gorram booby trap, too…or maybe an egg."

"Oh, but you _were_ there, 爱人 àiren," Saffron countered, her voice seductive. "You and I, and the feel of naked flesh—"

"I came in partway through her wild naked romp," Mal explained calmly to the others. "_She_ was bare as an egg, but _I_ was fully clothed, with boots on. She's a bad egg, people. Saffron, if you get excited by your own naked flesh, that's 鸟事 niǎoshì."

"I can see why you want to conceal what really happened from your crew," Saffron retorted. "They might be shocked to know that your bunk was the scene of such deviant acts."

"You tellin' tales on yourself, darlin'?" Mal asked coolly. "鸟话 Niǎohuà from the mouth of a 鸟人 niǎorén."

"Can my bunk be the scene of some deviant acts?" asked Jayne.

Mal wasn't sure if Jayne had just caught on to the plan, or if it was just Jayne being Jayne, but he took it and ran with it. "Ya mean chokin' your chicken ain't deviant enough?"

"Ain't no more deviant than answerin' the call a' nature."

"Let's ride on past the part where you explain exactly what that means, Jayne," Mal said hastily.

"Don't mind Jayne," Kaylee told Saffron with a conspiratorial wink, "he's just got chicken house ways." Kaylee was shocked herownself at her boldness, but her Cap'n had tipped her the signal. She wasn't sure if this was what the Captain had in mind, but for what it was worth…

"That's right," Jayne affirmed, not offended in the least. "Happy as a rooster in a henhouse."

"She just don't understand the peckin' order around here." Kaylee pointed a finger at Saffron, amazed at how easily she'd gotten into the swing of it.

"Sure do, pumpkin," Saffron retorted. "Your Captain thinks he's cock o' the walk."

"He rules the roost," Simon inserted.

"Thinks he's a tough old bird," Jayne added.

"Hey, leadership's not everything it's cracked up to be," Mal exclaimed. "It's not somethin' to crow about. 'Specially on a boat full of insubordinate 疯子 fēngzi like y'all. A gorram hen party."

"Are you feeling hen-pecked, Mal?" Inara asked, getting in the game.

"Nope. I always liked hangin' around with chicks."

Saffron had been trying to get a word in edgewise during this rapid-fire exchange of chicken humor, but she was half a beat behind the others, looking somewhat baffled by the new crew dynamic.

"See, Cap'n may think he's hard-boiled, but he's really over-easy," Kaylee remarked.

"Not hard for me to be that way, when you're so sunny side up," Mal responded. Taking advantage of Saffron's uncharacteristic hesitancy, he pulled a small piece of electronic paper out of his pocket with a flourish. "This here's the key to the city," he proclaimed dramatically.

Saffron was hard-pressed to suppress a gasp when she recognized the access code she had used to activate the bridge protocol, and which she'd been using to activate a special feature on the Captain's personal cortex connection when he'd surprised her in his bunk. _The key to the city? Does he know what it is?_

"River," Mal continued, having noticed Saffron's start of surprise, "can you make any sense of this chicken scratch?"

River examined the paper carefully. "The turtle lays thousands of eggs in secret, but when a hen lays an egg, the whole country is informed," she intoned, with the air of one reading a secret message. She directed her penetrating gaze at Saffron and repeated, _"__王八蛋__Wángbādàn__."_

Mal, knowing that River was making it up as she went along, that she was in fact reading and memorizing—and perhaps cracking—the code that lay encrypted in the "chicken scratch" on that paper, played along. "Looks like your chickens come home to roost, Saffron. Everybody knows you laid an egg."

"She looks good with egg on her face," Inara said wickedly. "I've seen her that way before. On Bellerophon. In a dumpster." She paused long enough for everyone to conjure up the mental image. "What, you didn't see it coming? Don't tell me you were counting your chickens before they were hatched."

"People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately," River quoted.

"She was tryin' to feather her own nest," Jayne contributed.

"That she was," Mal agreed. "Figured she'd make herself a nest egg, fly the coop, leave us here tryin' to scratch out a living." It was easy, now that they'd started. This was fun.

"Working for chicken feed," Saffron retaliated with a sneer, cackling nastily. Her counter-attack was short-lived.

"Don't cackle if you haven't laid," River retorted.

"Yeah, quit your squawkin'," Kaylee rejoined.

"Zoe, you ain't said a word," Mal remarked. "You just been settin'. Time to weigh in."

"No need to, sir. Just thinkin' on the henway."

"What's a henway?" asked Ip, playing the straight man.

"'Bout eight pounds," Zoe deadpanned, as she flipped Saffron the bird.

"You ain't hardly said nothin', Ip. What's the matter, you chicken? Nor you, Simon. Last one in is a rotten egg."

"呆若木鸡 Dāiruòmùjī," Simon hastened to insert.

"No, but I've just about run out of chicken puns," Ip answered. "I'm just trying to make sense of your cock-eyed view of the 'Verse."

"Run out of chicken jokes?" exclaimed Kaylee, wide-eyed. "You mean, like, empty nest syndrome?"

"No, I just mean that chicken puns are scarcer than hen's teeth," Ip replied.

Saffron rolled her eyes. These people were _crazy_, abso-frickin-lutely 神经病shén jīng bìng. Not just the creepy girl, but _all_ of them. And the lunacy seemed to be catching.

Mal caught the look. "What you lookin' up for, Yo-Saff-Bridge? Afraid the sky is fallin'?"

"Hardly," she scoffed.

"Or is it just that you won't help plant the wheat, but you still want to eat the bread?"

She huffed.

"She'd like to be the fox guarding the henhouse," Inara inserted.

"Don't crow over me, _Companion._" Saffron made the title into a sneer.

Mal intervened. "You'd rather apply the law of the henhouse," he responded, recollecting the old proverb. "Bird on top 拉屎 lāshǐ on the birds below."

"The rooster may crow, but the hen delivers the goods," Saffron returned nastily.

"'Cept this time, the yolk's on you, you dumb cluck."

"This is absurd. This is ridiculous," Saffron seethed. "It's enough to make hens laugh."

"NOT FUNNY!" River yelled, stunning the room into silence.

"Escort Saffron back to her coop," Mal directed Zoe, breaking the tension. "I mean, her nest—roost—room," he corrected. "After all, if she's gonna get up with the chickens, hatch a few plots—"

"Early bird gets the worm," contributed Ip.

"Hey, that's a bird joke, not a chicken joke."

"Don't brood over it," Ip retorted.

"A chicken ain't nothin' but a bird," Jayne added.

In the event, Zoe marched Saffron back to her room, passing Kaylee's chicken lights along the way. Saffron actually seemed relieved to escape back into her prison, as if she feared contagion from the chicken-punning madness that was running rampant on the ship.

. . .

When Zoe returned later, River having relieved her at watch on Saffron's coop—er, _room_—she found the crew gathered for the evening meal.

"Saffron put up a squawk about bein' sent back to her room?" Mal inquired.

Zoe's response was a low cackle. "Oh, I ruffled her feathers but good, sir."

They sat down at the table to eat. "Who made this stuff?" Jayne asked, critically.

"I did," Ip proclaimed.

"Man, you could make chicken salad outta chicken poop," Jayne responded, shoveling it in.

Ip turned to Simon. "Is that good, what he said?"

"I have no idea," Simon replied.

"You can't make omelets without breaking an egg," Ip remarked to Jayne, "unless, of course, you use egg-style protein packets."

"Good on you, Doc Ip," Jayne chuckled. "This's good." He chewed the protein mush for a while, considering. "Tastes like chicken."

. . .

Laughter really was the best medicine, Mal decided, when he thought about it afterwards. Saffron—Eris, the goddess of discord, as River so rightly called her—had had them all spun about, at sixes and sevens—dare he say _scrambled?—_and ready to jump down each other's throats. One good session of chicken jokes, mostly at Saffron's expense, and the crew was pulling together again. Everything was healed.

Or nearly everything. Inara had pulled with the crew against Saffron, but things weren't healed between himself and Inara yet. Not by a long shot. Saffron hadn't helped it none, but she hadn't started it neither. Inara and he had created this problem for themselves, and he guessed they had to solve it for themselves, too.

There was only one way about it. He picked himself up, walked to Inara's shuttle, and knocked on the door.

. . .

.

.

.

glossary

_混蛋 __Húndàn [Bastard]_

你們都閉嘴 Nǐmen dōu bìzuǐ [Everybody shut up]

一起 深 呼吸 Yī qǐ shēn hūxī [Let's take a deep breath]

神经病shén jīng bìng [insane]

爱人 àiren [lover, husband]

鸟事 niǎoshì [bird matters, idiomatic expression for "I don't give a damn"]

鸟话 Niǎohuà [Bullshit (literally "bird speech")]

鸟人 niǎorén [bastard, asshole (literally "bird person")]

疯子 fēngzi [lunatics]

_王八蛋 __Wángbādàn [Bastard (literally, "Turtle egg")]_

呆若木鸡 Dāiruòmùjī [Dumb as a wooden chicken (idiomatic expression meaning "Dumbstruck")]

神经病shén jīng bìng [insane]

拉屎 lāshǐ [shits]

* * *

_Thoughts and feedback...send me a squawk!_


	33. Chapter 33

What Begins with an Apple, Part 17a

_Mal and Inara finally have it out._

* * *

"Inara, may I come in?"

"No."

"See, that's why I usually don't ask," he quipped, with a lightness he really didn't feel, as he entered the shuttle.

Inara was regarding him with a steely stare.

"We need to talk," Mal stated.

Inara didn't say a word.

"Look," he said, "I've had about as much of this no-talkin' 屁話 pìhuà as I can take. We've been able to talk in front of other people. Why can't we talk to each other when it's just the two of us?" If he were to be perfectly honest, the last time they were alone together, it was _he_ who had refused to talk, but her present silence seemed to justify his words now.

She still didn't answer. Mal picked up one of Inara's beautiful things from the shelf and bounced it from hand to hand, noting how she followed the object with her eyes. He began tossing it in the air and catching it.

"Will you put that down?!" she hissed.

He kept hold of it, held it up in front of him and took a good look at it. It was (fittingly enough) some kind of fussily-made egg. Encrusted with shiny stones and gold filigree, it had a hinged window that revealed an equally fussy bejeweled chick settin' inside. He threw it high again and caught it one-handed, side-swiping it out of the air.

"Stop that!" she exclaimed. "Do have any idea how precious—"

"Gotcha talkin'," he interrupted, triumphantly.

"You—you—鸟人niǎorén!" Mal had happened to grab one of the few reminders of her former life on Sihnon that she still carried with her, the Sihnonese Egg of Life, symbolically wrought from a single piece of jade, and passed from mother to daughter. He had _no_ idea of its importance or significance, and now he was tossing it like a toy!

"That's right." He tossed the toy up again, caught it with a swoop of his left hand this time. "Call me names, it's a good start."

She bit her tongue, only to see him provocatively toss the heirloom again. "Stop it now, you 笨蛋 bèndàn."

"You're angry with me."

"Of course I'm angry with you, Mal!"

"Fair enough," he said, unperturbed. He fixed her with a penetrating look. "Why?"

Oh, there were a thousand reasons _why_. She had no intention of speaking of them. It would be undignified, it would be uncontrolled…it would be painful, it would be heartbreaking. She intended to keep those reasons locked in her heart, denying them even to herself. She would not speak of them.

That was the trouble with secrets, Inara thought. As a Companion, she was accustomed to keeping secrets. The thing was, it was easier to keep other people's secrets than it was to keep one's own. One's own secrets posed more of a burden. Secrets and lies…what a tangled web we weave. How she wished she could simply tell him…how she wished it were that simple. But nothing was ever that simple. Clearing the air, _telling_…if she told part, he'd seize onto the bits, worry at them like a terrier, question, insist, demand, until she'd told the whole. One part, leading to another, and another, pulled along like the strands in a tangled ball of yarn. A whole cascade of complications and consequences. They couldn't even deal with the simplest of stumbling blocks in their relationship, let alone a whole avalanche. She would not speak of her reasons.

But he was…just _infuriating! _He was tossing the precious heirloom in the air again like it was a ball. She would not speak of those reasons, the real reasons, but she could speak of some of the others, the unimportant reasons.

"You had Saffron naked in your bunk again, Mal."

This wasn't really about Saffron. He knew it, and he knew she knew it. But it was a start. They did need to clear the air about Saffron as well, and they might as well hash it out now. Hell, it was better than not talking.

He couldn't help but think that they should have moved beyond this sort of petty bickering by now. He had asked her to _marry_ him, for pete's sake, and if that didn't show that he was seriously invested in the relationship, he didn't know what did. But it seemed they were back to square one, or maybe square two. At least it was familiar. Their former mode of flirt-fighting was quite a comfortable fit, and it was much better than not talking at all. He'd take it.

"She was in my bunk," he confirmed. "And she was naked. I'm gonna object to the part where I had her, though, 'cause that didn't happen."

"You wanted her."

"We covered this territory before, Inara. There's some part of me that, against all reason and common sense, still feels the pull of the flesh around her. But that ain't gonna happen. It'd be stupid beyond belief, and I'd probably wind up dead. I got no plan to wind up dead on account of that treacherous snake." Inara didn't reply, so he added, "You got the evidence before you. I got her outta my bunk without so much as touchin' her, and without so much as a button disturbed myownself. And the whole time she was rattlin' on about—actually, I weren't even listening, some kind of seduction 屁話 pìhuà, no doubt. I knew she was just in there to search my quarters or plant some kinda screw-up device. I found the encryption paper, after, but she mighta laid some other bug or booby trap, and who knows what she mighta found." Still holding the jade egg, he crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. "So, what's your next move?"

"You pitied Saffron."

He eyed her, waiting for explanation.

"When I knocked her down. You looked at me like I was—like I was a 狂热的狐狸 kuángrè de húli, when I—"

"You did look like a 狂热的狐狸 kuángrè de húli when you knocked her down, darlin'. I thought for a moment that I was next." He remembered the scene, Inara standing over Saffron on the floor, Inara with her eyes flashing and a fierce look on her face. "You have any idea how beautiful you are when you're angry? It was all I could—"

"Shut up. And don't change the subject. I was provoked. The things Saffron told me…"

"Aw, now, darlin', you oughtta known better 'n to believe anything that evil snake tells you. Nothin' but lies and deception from that mouth of hers. Her whole aim is to get us angry at each other, try to make us tear our own throats out so she don't hafta do it herownself."

"I'm not that gullible, Mal. Of course I didn't believe a word she said. And don't call me darlin'."

"Of course not, darl—" He stopped. She huffed.

"I don't believe a word she said, but her lies are spun on a substrate of truth. And I can't help but wonder about the kernels of truth hidden under all the 鸡的 大便 jī de dàbiàn."

"Ah, like the cock in the midden in the fable. Sees the shiny jewel, but has more need of the pickle corn."

She had no idea what he meant by that. The cock in the _what?_ In what fable? Maybe it was one from Shadow. Sometimes she didn't understand a word he was saying. It was like he spoke a different language. "What?" she asked, baffled.

"The shiny lies she tells are distractin', but you're lookin' past them to find the hidden truth. So, what bits of truth you pick out of Saffron's 鸡屎 jī shǐ?"

"You're no innocent, Mal."

"Never claimed I was."

"You're not pure as the driven snow."

"I ain't. You got a point, here?"

"You have a vast repertoire of naughty foreplay that you've concealed from me, and you have a girl in every port!"

"What?! A girl in every port? You believe that?!" he exclaimed indignantly. He threw down the egg on the sofa cushions, and fought a brief war within himself as to whether such a 神经病 shén jīng bìng accusation even merited a serious rebuttal. Of all the issues that stood between them—she focused on _this?_ It wasn't even real. Did she even know him at all? "Like I have the time or money to spare on anything but gettin' the next job lined up when we're planetside!"

Zoe would have called him on that. It was his way of avoiding intimacy and the complications that ensued—making himself too busy for it. In a more rational state of mind, Inara would have called him on it, too. But she wasn't anywhere near rational, and her response stoked the irrational fire.

"Oh, poor Mal, doesn't have the _money_ to pay for a whore when he hits dirt!"

He was livid, and angry words came easily to his tongue. "You're off getting laid by every man with a fat expense account, and I ain't slept with nobody—" he paused just a moment to acknowledge the one exception they both knew about "—not nobody else since I first saw you three years ago."

If Inara had been able to think reasonably, she might have found it touching that Mal had saved himself for her. But she was furious, and, like a ship under full sail, she did not pause or deviate from her course. "Of course you didn't _sleep_ with anybody, Mal," she said vehemently. "You don't have to sleep to stray. You and your _wife_ there got up to all kinds of nasty on your 'wedding night.' Everything short of a home run."

He stared blankly for just a moment as he worked out that by "wife" she meant Saffron. Immediately his anger flared. "My _'wife' _did you say? She ain't _my_ wife! She's the 'wife' of every damn man in the galaxy. That marriage ain't valid, and it sure as hell wasn't ever consummated. I got knocked out, remember?"

"Oh yes, I remember that very well, you stupid 王八蛋 wángbādàn. You got knocked out kissing, after indulging in all kinds of foreplay with your naked and articulate bride. It's the only thing that kept you from going all the way."

Smoke was practically pouring from Mal's ears. "_You_ kissed her, too," he charged. "You kissed her, and got knocked out, just the same as me. Remember? She—"

Inara interrupted him with a force like a fire-breathing dragon. His words had pushed her into admitting something she thought she'd never own. "I _never_ kissed her! I kissed _you,_ Mal!"

_Oh._

Mal's full-speed-ahead protest abruptly failed, as if the wind had been suddenly knocked out of his sails. For a moment they stared at each other in antagonistic silence. And then suddenly there was only one possible course of action.

He kissed her. Hard and passionate, a full-body kiss, a rapid conflagration of ardent desire. Moments later they were caught up in an intense storm of raging love-making, sex that encompassed fervor and fury, anger and ardor in equal measure. No kind of foreplay had ever caused their passions to storm as they did now.

Physically, they were in perfect accord. _You are _mine_! _each of them was saying with their body. _You are mine_, _and I am yours._ The possessive aspect of love did not usually dominate their relationship, but it seemed to be what each of them needed, after all the misunderstandings and hurt.

Much later, completely exhausted and spent, they slept in each other's arms.

. . .

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glossary

屁話 pìhuà [nonsense]

鸟人niǎorén [asshole, bastard (lit. "bird person")]

笨蛋 bèndàn [fool ("dumb egg")]

屁話 pìhuà [nonsense]

狐狸 húli [fox]

鸡的 大便 jī de dàbiàn [chicken excrement]

鸡屎 jī shǐ [chicken crap]

神经病 shén jīng bìng [crazy]

王八蛋 wángbādàn [son of a bitch]

* * *

_One more chapter. Kindly leave a review._


	34. Chapter 34

What Begins with an Apple, Part 17b

_Mal and Inara finally have it out._

* * *

They slept tangled together, as if they were one. Their bodies certainly had no problem with this arrangement. It was their minds, and the baggage each of them carried, that stood in their way. On the physical plane, they were already reconciled, and as long as conscious thought remained suspended in the depths of dreams, they derived nothing but comfort and strength from each other's presence. But their thoughts and feelings had a lot of catching up to do, and after a brief restorative sleep, Mal began stirring. Thoughts began to intrude, and soon he was fully awake. There were too many unresolved questions.

He disentangled himself and got up out of bed. He began pulling on his clothes.

Inara stirred. "What are you doing?"

"Gettin' dressed," he answered, stating the obvious.

"Won't you stay the night?" she asked.

"Don't think so. We still got issues between us."

Inara found his abrupt manner hurtful, and his words jolted her fully awake.

"You can't do _that_, then just act like it never happened," he continued.

Briefly, she wondered exactly what he meant by '_that'_;then, things clicked into place. _Did he know? _She had taken a client to her bed on Beaumonde. Not that he had any right to say anything about it. He had betrayed her first, and she had broken off their relationship. She had then scheduled the client in the course of ordinary business. It had nothing to do with him; he wasn't even her lover at the time. There was no betrayal on _her_ part. Or so she tried to tell herself. Her heart informed her what nonsense that line of thinking was. _Control is the first lesson, and the last,_ she told herself sternly, as she pushed her emotions firmly aside and engaged the rational part of her brain. She waited in silence for him to explain.

"Inara, I asked you to marry me…"

_Not this again. _She interrupted. "And I told you—"

"Don't interrupt. I know damn well what you told me. You told me you were delighted I asked."

"I never said yes."

"Don't interrupt me, Inara. I know you didn't say yes. You think I don't know that?" He rounded on her, his eyes flashing with fury.

"Mal—"

"Will you listen to me, for a change?"

She was silent, though there were a thousand words that came to her tongue. He'd better have a good explanation, for all the hurt he had caused her.

"I asked you, and you gave me hope. Hope that one day, we might…" He couldn't continue the sentence, and shook his hand in a frustrated gesture, indicating that he was not finished, as she made to interrupt yet again. "You gave me hope, and you gave me lovin' such as I never had before. Made me feel like a shiny hero. Made me resolve to endeavor to be worthy of your love. To do whatever it took to work toward that goal. To please you. Then, next thing I know, not a week later, you're callin' me names and throwin' crockery at me—with not a word of explanation—"

"I explained," she broke in heatedly. "I made myself perfectly clear."

"Not a word I could understand as to why."

"Not my fault you couldn't understand."

He continued, ignoring her interruption. "And when I asked _why_—assuming I was at fault, mind—I even said sorry, for what, I don't know—you wouldn't even talk to me, not even to tell me off. Just walled yourself off, and tried to break my heart."

"I wasn't trying to break your heart."

"Well, you damn near did!" he exclaimed in a voice that was high and choked.

"Mal—"

"Inara, I know I'm an ornery sonuvabitch. I get angry, and mean. I got dark places in me. I'm one messed up 混蛋 húndàn. I gotta be one helluva person to try to live with. But I love you. And when I gave you my heart, I gave you everything. _All_ of me. Ain't no part of me I'm holding back for somebody else."

She gave him a significant look full of disbelief.

He met her gaze unflinchingly and returned it with a blazing blue look of high intensity. "So who is it you think I'm two-timing you with?"

She didn't speak.

"Saffron? Cold as ice and dead crazy on top of it. Surely you don't still believe I could ever carry on with that evil snake."

Inara remained silent.

"You can't believe what you were saying, about me having a girl in every port—if you believe that, you don't know me at all." He looked away, pained by the thought that she might not know him well enough to believe him. Then he renewed eye contact and added, "And trust me, the real me is bad enough, without you makin' up bad things I ain't done to add to the mix."

She still wouldn't speak, but Mal read her face.

"Someone on this ship…you think I'm sleepin' with a woman on this ship. I—" He broke off, momentarily speechless. _I'm sleeping with _you_, Inara! _he thought._ You! And only you. And not nobody else. Can't you understand that?_

"Alright, let's go through it logical," he began. "River? She's pleasant enough. And she ain't crazy all the time. But she's half my age. And she's too busy makin' googly eyes at Ip to look at a mean old man like me. Kaylee? Well, aside from the fact I think of her as a sister, I think Simon would have something to say if'n I tried something on with his girlfr—fiancée. So that leaves…Zoe," he stated, as the revelation hit him. "You think I'm carryin' on with Zoe."

To Inara's surprise he began to laugh.

"Well, if that don't beat all…"

"You're making it sound like it's an absurd notion." Inara broke her silence defensively.

"It _is_ an absurd notion."

"What's so absurd about it?"

"Inara, what Zoe and I been through together—"

"Well, that's just it, isn't it, Mal?" Now it was Inara's turn for fury. "What you and Zoe have been through together, no one knows except yourselves! Everyone else is left to imagine it! And they have to base their imaginations on the evidence of their senses. Wash chose to trust Zoe, to believe that you weren't lovers—"

"Well, we ain't lovers," he interrupted.

"—despite the evidence to the contrary."

"Evidence? What the hell evidence you think you have?"

Inara's silence was filled with righteous anger.

"I won't stand for this," Mal spoke with cold fury. "You have something to accuse me of, you tell me, straight up. Don't damn me without a fair trial."

Inara made a decision. "On the way from Bandiagara to Beaumonde, I heard you and Zoe, laughing together on the bridge, talking about 'getting laid' and—and—how when you met, you weren't a virgin, and how you had 'done it, many a time'—"

"Whoa, now, you're taking things out of context—"

"Mal, you can't even talk to _me_ about sex! Me! Your lover! And yet you can talk to _her?"_

Mal let out a deep breath. "Let me explain. I don't feel comfortable talkin' about sex."

"Do you think I'm an idiot? I _heard_ you—"

"Not usually," he said, leaving his reference completely ambiguous. "But that particular morning—perhaps you recall what we done in bed that night before." It was a painful subject, now that he knew that even _that_ had been nothing more than Inara playing him with her Companion wiles. He stopped and looked at her, and to his surprise, he saw her eyes grow soft and sensuous, as she recalled that night of seismic waves. Had she felt it, too? Was it more than just 'techniques' to her? He needed to focus, focus on the here and now. "I'm not like to forget it," he continued in a low voice. "It put me in an unusually good mood. Came onto the bridge whistling. Zoe tweaked me on it. Proved to me I ain't never been in such a good mood since '07. And we got to talkin' about old times—an' she was ribbin' me about how I used ta be such a straight-laced—anyway, I had to prove her wrong by tellin' tales on myself. It's the best mood I seen Zoe in since Wash died. She ain't had nothing shiny to temper her grief since Miranda, nothin' except the baby—"

"Right," Inara said acidly. "The. Baby."

"What's wrong with Zoe havin' a baby?"

"What's wrong indeed!"

"That baby is Zoe's one chance at happiness, her salvation from grief—"

"And you're her savior!"

"What the 地狱 dìyù do you mean? I don't got nothin' to do with it."

"That's what you say. And I believed it. I believed it right up until I saw you—kissing Zoe's belly—feeling her up—murmuring sweet nothings—kissing her! And you expect me to believe—"

"You _saw_ that?!"

"Yes. I saw that." She stared him down, defying him to deny the evidence.

"I thought we were alone," he said, almost to himself.

Inare sat firmly on her high horse. "And what's your defense now?"

"It ain't what you think," he replied.

"Touching?! Kissing?! _How_ isn't it what I think?"

"Zoe let me feel the baby kicking," he explained reasonably. "It was…unbelievable." His voice took on a note of awe.

"How moving." Inara spoke sarcastically. "The expectant father feels the first squirmings of his offspring."

"Expectant…offspring…Inara, you can't believe that!" he exclaimed as he realized what she meant.

"I can," she stated coldly.

"Inara, that's—that's Wash's baby! That's the last bit of Wash Zoe got left. That baby's precious."

"Of course your baby's precious," she echoed snippily.

"_Wash's _baby_._ _Not _mine."

Inara regarded him with skepticism, clearly not completely convinced. He glared right back, holding stubbornly to his line. She didn't flinch in the slightest.

"The kiss," she prompted.

"Can't I give my friend a chaste kiss? Ain't you never kissed a friend?"

"It's not right. You and Zoe don't kiss. You don't even touch!"

"Right," he responded heatedly. "Me and Zoe don't touch. So how is it you suppose we're doin' each other without touching?"

Inara's response was a sound of aggravated frustration.

"I don't touch Zoe. And she don't touch me. Except when the situation calls for it. Shoulda been Wash, holdin' her hand and feeling his child move inside his wife's belly. Shoulda been Wash, tellin' her she's special, that she done good, giving her comfort, lettin' her know what a marvel she got inside her. Shoulda been Wash, givin' her a real kiss, a lover's kiss, and makin' tender love to his pregnant wife. But she can't have that no more, and if she chooses to share that little shiny moment with me—a friend, a poor stand-in for the love she lost—what am I gonna say to her but, you done good? And give her what poor comfort a friend can."

Inara still seemed unconvinced, but she was listening, taking it in. At least it seemed she was not dead set against it.

"Reckon that makes the second time me and Zoe have kissed like that."

"And the other time?" Inara demanded.

"At her and Wash's wedding." Mal turned away. _This discussion is over,_ he told her with a look, and he left the shuttle.

. . .

At last—it seemed _at last_ to Mal, although in truth it hadn't taken any longer than expected, and he'd even shaved four hours off the usual—at last they reached Hektor and were able to rid themselves of both the crates of chickens and Saffron. He was prepared for trouble, perhaps even a hostile welcoming party, but weren't nobody but an old farmer in a wagon come for the chickens, and no greeter at all for Saffron, who didn't seem to expect nobody, for that matter. The entire crew turned out united to wish Saffron a fond farewell. Actually, no they didn't, they turned out to bid her good riddance, and to make sure she didn't try to pull any last-minute stunts as she got off the boat. Mal watched, with weapon at the ready, until Saffron was away across the spaceport.

The evil snake didn't waste a moment sightseeing. Within minutes she had contracted passage on a ship that was at point of departure, bound back to Beaumonde. Mal followed Saffron with his eyes as she made her way across the dust of the spaceport and mounted the ladder leading to the hatch of the Gurtsler Paragon spacecraft. He watched her up the ladder, as she clung to the rungs and pushed herself up from the legs and hips, climbing like a girl. He was not satisfied until he saw her enter the ship, the hatch swing shut, and the ship take off into the Black. At last Mal breathed deeply, letting down his guard for the first time in five days. Only then did he proceed with refueling his ship.

A few hours later, as Serenity climbed out into the Black bound for Bernadette, Mal couldn't shake the image from his mind of Saffron climbing the ladder. Saffron, with her big, round…curves, climbing the ladder up the side of the ship, clinging with her arms and moving from the hips…_like a girl._ _Climbing like a girl. _Suddenly a clear image of the Beaumonde saboteur from the security video played in his mind's eye. Gorrammit! _Saffron_ was the saboteur! And he'd just let her fly off, free as a bird.

. . .

.

.

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_fin_

glossary

混蛋 húndàn [bastard]

地狱 dìyù [hell]

* * *

_What?! you say. You call that an ending?!_

_Well, okay, so not everything's resolved. There's more to the story...but it became necessary to impose some limits, simply so that I could handle the story. At more than 60,000 words, this was when I began to realize that I've been making a transition from little 10,000 word "episodes" to something that was, if not exactly epic, at least verbose enough to be an epic. Novel-length fanfic is a more difficult beast to manage than little stories._

_So...there's more coming, and most of the threads left dangling here are either resolved or at least pursued further in the next story. Which is mostly already written. However, you won't be seeing it for a little while, because I usually do not publish stories until I have reviewed and edited them many times, run them by a beta reader or two, and revised them. If you have comments or questions about the story, now's the time to review or PM me, because the new story is at a stage in which I can incorporate feedback. It took me about a year to write What Begins with an Apple. The next story (Ends with a Horse) is coming together faster, but it is nearly as long. I hope to have it finished within a few weeks._

_I want to thank again my wonderful beta readers, my sister and Bytemite, for their very helpful discussions and suggestions for improvements to What Begins with an Apple._

_And to the readers of this story: thank you for reading, for sticking with this, and thank you especially for your feedback. Your reviews are helpful and just the kind of encouragement I need to keep writing._


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